Duff & Phelps To Rate Infrastructure Projects

While rating infrastructure projects, Duff & Phelps will analyse parameters such as sponsors, pre-completion risk, operation risk, off-take risk, country risk and other structural aspects.

It will co-ordinate with its newly floated Indian arm in rating the mega-infrastructure projects part-funded by overseas debts.

President and managing director of Duff & Phelps Credit Rating India N C Roy said, The infrastructure sector is all set to witness a boom in the coming months and hence the decision to undertake infrastructure projects' rating.

We at Duff & Phelps believe that rating the infrastructure projects per se is often more important than merely rating the instrument, Roy added.

 

Duff & Phelps proposes to undertake rating for various project finance transactions in core areas like telecommunications, power projects, toll roads, airports, mines and pipelines.

In fact, with external borrowings fast emerging as a key factor for funding infrastructure projects, international rating agencies are looking forward to lucrative rating assignments from Indian infrastructure companies.

Duff & Phelps India, which commenced operations in July, is negotiating with leading corporate houses to bag rating assignments for overseas borrowings. Companies tapping the overseas debt markets now had finalised on the rating agency quite sometime back. Negotiations with many companies are at advanced stages and we hope to bag our first assignment within the next two months, Roy said.

The company, according to Roy, has already bagged some local rating assignments, the details of which he declined to divulge.

The US-based company is likely to undertake a sovereign rating for India shortly. After we get the first contract for rating overseas debts, Duff & Phelps will undertake sovereign rating for the country as a whole, Roy said.

The US-based company, considered a leader in structural finance rating, has a 33 per cent equity stake in its Indian subsidiary and provides technical back-up for novel rating techniques.

The Indian subsidiary is targeting top 50 corporates and financial institutions for rating debenture issues and fixed deposit programmes. Besides, the company is also laying emphasis on undertaking rating contracts for commercial papers (CPs) and certificate of deposits (CDs) of banks.