Moody's Investors Service has assigned provisional ratings to the $2 billion Euro Medium-Term Note Programme (EMTN) of Doha Bank at A2 and A3 for senior and subordinated notes, respectively. The notes can either be issued by Doha Bank or its fully owned funding subsidiary Doha Bank Finance Ltd. guaranteed by Doha Bank. All ratings carry a stable outlook.
Moody's says that the A2 foreign-currency-denominated senior notes are rated at the same level as Doha Bank's long-term foreign-currency deposit ratings, while the subordinated notes are one notch lower, reflecting their subordinated status.
In assigning these ratings, Moody's has considered Doha Bank's strong franchise and relative importance to Qatar's domestic financial system, as the third-largest Qatari conventional bank (with a market share of around 8 percent in total banking assets); (ii) the high likelihood of potential support from the Qatari authorities in case of need; and (iii) Doha Bank's intrinsic financial strength, given its D+ standalone bank financial strength rating (BFSR), mapping to Baa3 on the long-term scale.
The rating agency notes that it does not intend to rate notes for which payment of principal and/or interest is variable and contractually dependent on the occurrence of a non-credit-linked event; or (ii) the performance of an index (non-credit-linked notes). The latter would not include notes whose principal and coupon payments are affected by standard sources of variation (see Moody's Rating Methodologies and Implementation Guidance, "Moody's Revised Update on Rating Debt Obligations with Variable Promises," July 2010).
© Arab News 2012
