The international rating agency Standard and Poor’s (S&P) has today, 20 January 2014, assigned Landsbankinn the credit rating grade BB+ with a stable outlook.
In its rating report, S&P states that it is the company’s view that “the bank operates with significant liquidity and capital buffers and low leverage in the difficult economic environment,” and that the “stable outlook reflects our expectation that Landsbankinn's capital will continue to strengthen and that it will restructure a significant amount of legacy bonds due in 2014-2018.”
The ratings reflect – according to S&P – their “'bb' anchor for banks operating in Iceland and our view of Landsbankinn's "adequate" business position, "strong" capital and earnings, "adequate" risk position, "average" funding, and "adequate" liquidity, as our criteria define these terms.
S&P expresses the view that “Landsbankinn has been well managed since its creation in 2008, demonstrating superior operating efficiency and a reduction of non-performing loans.”
S&P further states that despite its size, Landsbankinn's revenue base is rather broad and capital and earnings are "strong", according to rating agency’s criteria.
Furthermore: “Our leverage ratio for Landsbankinn (adjusted common equity to adjusted assets) was higher than 20% in September 2013. This is one of the best leverage ratios among global commercial banks we rate.”
Steinthór Pálsson, CEO of Landsbankinn: "S&P's rating is pleasing and conforms to our expectations with regard for, amongst other things, the sovereign credit rating. The strength of Landsbankinn's position emerges clearly in many of the evaluated factors and it is especially good to see S&P's evaluation of our operations, risk and financial position; factors Landsbankinn has placed great emphasis on improving. Landsbankinn has had on its agenda to obtain a credit rating to facilitate access to international credit markets in the future. These favourable results should boost trust in the bank and can also be regarded as one of many steps in Iceland's journey towards lifting capital controls, which is of no less importance."
For further information on Landsbankinn go to: landsbankinn.is/english
For further information, please contact
Kristján Kristjánsson, pr@landsbankinn, 00 354 410 4011/00 354 899 9352
