Moody's Liquidity-Stress Index hits 2-year high in September

Moody's Liquidity-Stress Index (LSI) for EMEA speculative-grade companies worsened to 12.6% in September 2016, after rising 1.3% in Q3 2016, as refinancing and liquidity pressures continue to affect some companies despite debt capital markets being benign, says the rating agency.

Moody's Liquidity-Stress Index falls when corporate liquidity appears to improve and rises when it appears to weaken.

"While the latest reading represents the largest move in the index since liquidity pressures in commodity sectors in Q3 2015, deterioration is unlikely to continue at the current pace into 2017," explains Tobias Wagner, a Moody's Vice President -- Senior Analyst. "The trend nevertheless highlights ongoing liquidity pressures for some firms into 2017, despite solid liquidity profiles for most companies."

Negative changes in SGL scores in Q3 2016 outnumbered positive changes by a factor of four. Such a significant uptick in negative changes underlines that some companies across industries will continue to face issues with refinancing and liquidity despite currently benign debt capital markets.

Moody's expects that the LSI will be stable or increase in 2017 as a repeat influx of first-time issuers with adequate or good liquidity profiles, similar to the boom years of 2013-14, is unlikely.

However, there are other indicators suggesting a slight easing in credit pressures. Industry sector outlooks remain mostly stable globally, and there were more positive than negative changes in Q3 2016. In addition, upgrades exceeded downgrades in the third quarter of 2016 for the EMEA region.

While this is encouraging, prospects for widespread liquidity improvements appear limited. Macroeconomic growth remains low and high-yield bond markets remain exposed to external factors, including the impact of potential interest rate rises in the US and possible QE tapering in Europe.

Some companies, particularly with low credit qualities and possible uneven performance track records, may find it challenging to find their window of opportunity to refinance in the market in 2017.

The report also comments that commodity sector liquidity pressures in EMEA have been slower to ease than in North America, while the current trend towards weak covenant protection in the EMEA leveraged finance sector has led to improvements in covenant subscores as weaker covenants are less likely to restrict access to liquidity sources such as revolving credit facilities.

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