The credit rating agency Moody’s has upgraded the rating of state-owned Bulgarian Energy Holding (BEH) to a provisional Ba1 corporate family rating with a stable outlook.
According to Moody’s, a corporate family rating (CFR) is an opinion of the BEH Group’s ability to honor its financial obligations and is assigned to the company as if it had a single class of debt and a single consolidated legal structure. Any debt issued by BEH would likely be rated lower than CFR given the structural subordination of the creditors. However, the potential notching will depend on the actual balance between the debt at the operating companies versus BEH.
Factors taken into account include BEH’s dominant position within electricity generation in Bulgaria, an improving financial profile and the ownership it holds over the country’s main gas transit and transmission and electricity transmission assets. However, BEH’s rating is constrained by the volatile earnings, the uncertainties about the full liberalization of the wholesale electricity market, the relatively un-transparent nature of gas and electricity regulations and weak liquidity policy management.
Upward change in the rating has limited potential due to significant uncertainty over the timing and nature of any liberalization of the wholesale electricity market, Moody’s concluded.
In 2015, BEH recorded a net profit of 15.1 million euros, compared to a loss of 141.6 million euros in 2014, transmits Serbia-energy.eu
