S&P Ratings

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services has launched its latest supranationals Special Edition. In this CreditMatters TV segment, Standard & Poor's Senior Director Élie Hériard Dubreuil discusses the credit strength of supranationals.

The number of entities poised for upgrades increased slightly to 246 as of Jan. 31, 2014, from 243 a month earlier. We define potential upgrades as issuers that Standard & Poor's rates 'AA+' to 'B-' with either positive rating outlooks or ratings on CreditWatch with positive implications. In this CreditMatters TV segment, Associate Director Gregg Moskowitz explains the key trends and data points.

CIS Sovereigns To Decrease Commercial Borrowing To $51 Billion In 2014. In this CreditMatters TV segment, Standard & Poor’s Associates in the Emerging Markets Sovereign Ratings Team, Ben Young and Ana Jelenkovic, discuss the report.

We recently assigned a corporate credit rating to Diamond Foods Inc. In this CreditMatters TV segment, Standard & Poor’s Director Bea Chiem explains the rationale behind our rating and what lies ahead for the company.

More non-U.S. airlines are using enhanced equipment trust certificates (EETCs) to finance new aircraft. In this CreditMatters TV segment, S&P credit analyst Olli Rouhiainen discusses our approach to non-U.S. EETCs and the factors driving their growing popularity.

Although rising student debt is likely to have a limited adverse impact on student loan ABS performance, there might be adverse implications on consumer spending and first-time homebuyers in the long run. In this CreditMatters TV segment, Standard & Poor's credit analysts Howard Esaki, John Anglim, and Erkan Erturk discuss student debt and student loan ABS.

In this segment of U.S. Consumer, Retail, and Health Care Weekly, Standard & Poor's Director Jacqueline Hui reviews the recent actions we took on TreeHouse Foods, Charlotte Russe, American Apparel, Jasper Merger Sub, Weight Watchers International, National Vision, Rent-A-Center Inc., Archer Daniels, Newell Rubbermaid, Medpace, and North American Breweries.

The Bay Delta Conservation Plan, a major water infrastructure project in the Sacramento – San Joaquin River Delta region of California, aims to increase supply reliability to utilities and improve the Delta's ecosystem. In this CreditMatters TV segment, Standard & Poor’s Director Robert Hannay spotlights the significant investment needed to complete the project and its potential benefits for users.

Mortgage servicing companies have been setting up affiliated REITs, which raise their own capital and purchase mortgage-servicing rights from the servicers. Standard & Poor’s believes its ratings on these REITs will remain mostly unaffected. However, additional debt and performance-related issues could spur some downgrades. In this CreditMatters TV segment, Associate Stephen Lynch explains the likely outcomes.

We expect our ratings on Canadian ABS to remain stable in 2014 despite stretched household finances that will likely deteriorate underlying collateral performance moderately. In this CreditMatters TV segment, Associate Director Matt Mitchell explains how our forward-looking performance assumptions are expected to contribute to ratings stability.

Standard & Poor’s outlook for Canadian banks remains stable but many institutions face ongoing challenges, such as finding and tapping into more growth opportunities while seeking to preserve asset quality. In this CreditMatters TV segment, Managing Director Tom Connell discusses what could lie ahead.

In this CreditMatters TV Segment, Standard & Poor’s Director Simon Redmond discusses recent results and capex trends for the Oil & Gas Majors, and Associate Director Rachel Lion gives an overview of S&P’s revised methodology for determining base case oil and gas price assumptions. S&P’s current price assumptions for Brent are $100 per barrel in 2014 and $95 in 2015.

In this week's Extra Credit segment, Standard & Poor's Director Jessica Matsumori discusses our outlook on the University of Chicago and Associate Director Jennifer Hansen provides a credit example for a direct purchase.

В 2014 г. Рост российского страхового сектора будет замедляться на фоне снижения прибыльности страховщиков. Заместитель директора Standard&Poor's Никольский Виктор объясняет взгляд агентства на страновые и отраслевые риски российского сектора страхования отличного от страхования жизни.

Standard & Poor's explains its insurance industry and country risk assessment on the Russian property/casualty sector. In this CreditMatters TV segment Standard & Poor's Associate Director Victor Nikolskiy discuss the Insurance Industry and country risk assessment and its effect on the Russian property/casualty sector.