International credit rating agency, Standard & Poor’s, renewed the African Trade Insurance Agency’s (ATI) ‘A/Stable’ stand-alone credit profile for the sixth consecutive year. Since 2008, ATI has been rated the strongest insurer in Africa by the rating agency, based largely on the company’s steadily growing underwriting, low losses, sound investment strategy and strong capitalisation.
In the report, S&P assessed ATI’s business profile as strong and its financial risk profile as adequate based on their criteria for rating multilateral lending institutions. The report lists several factors supporting the renewed rating including the company’s “public policy mandate, the strength and stability of its relationship with shareholders, and our assessment of its preferential creditor treatment. We view the agency’s governance and management expertise as prudent and transparent.”
The rating agency also assessed ATI’s liquidity as “strong” “with total liquid assets of $195 million, we expect ATI to have sufficient liquid resources to meet claims.”
S&P continued to rate the company’s outlook as stable based on its strong business and financial position. Future ratings could be impacted negatively if there is any “wavering of member support in terms of capital raising, provision of liquidity, or loss recoveries.” Alternatively, S&P “could revise upward” their assessment of “ATI’s capital and earnings if the total adjusted capital sustainably exceeds $250 million,” which would mark a significant increase from the company’s current capital of $175 million.
“S&P’s report provides confirmation that the systems and strategies we put in place over the past few years, are working. Our mid-year results, which have just been released also echo this opinion. These results indicate that to the period ending July 2014, ATI experienced a huge leap in the trade credit side of its balance sheet – reflecting a significant increase of over 100% in our bonds product and a 97% increase in our whole turnover credit product,” notes George Otieno, ATI’s Chief Executive Officer.
For the full S&P report, visit http://www.ati-aca.org/images/SP%20Report.pdf.
