26% domestic cos carry positive credit outlook: Moody's

Amid increasing worries over the rising unhedged external debt of corporates, global rating agency Moody's today said that 26 per cent of the domestic firms carry positive credit outlook and 70 per cent have stable outlook.
The country's external debt stood at USD 462 billion as of December 2014, out of which 80.5 per cent were non-government debt, according to the Finance Ministry data.
Over 35 per cent of the external debt of private corporates are unhedged, according to bankers and analysts.
"Twenty-six per cent of all corporates that Moody's rates in the country carry positive credit outlook, 70 per cent carry stable outlook, leaving only 4 per cent with negative outlook," a managing director at Moody's corporate finance croup Philipp Lotter said here today during the agency's first annual credit conference here.

These companies are in the non-financial and infrastructure space, the agency said, adding over the next 12-18 months, their credit profile should improve on the back of an uptick in economy which is likely to grow at around 7.5 per cent.
On a weighted average basis, Moody's expects the debt-to Ebitda of these corporate to stabilize at 2.8 times this year as he expects an upswing in earnings following a likely pick up in the economy which will also help shore up key credit metrics for corporate.
It can be noted that rising fund raising through ECBs, and also the jump in NRI deposits pushed up external debt to USD 462 billion as of December 2014, up up 3.5 per cent from the March levels, according to the government data released end March.

Of this, the share of government debt stood at 19.5 per cent and the rest 80.5 per cent were non-government debt. But as percentage of GDP, the overall external debt level improved to 23.2 per cent from 23.7 per cent in March 2014.