Estithmar – National Scale Issuer and Issue Ratings Affirmed, with a Stable Outlook

Capital Intelligence Ratings (CI Ratings or CI) today announced that it has affirmed the Long- and Short-Term issuer ratings on the Qatar National Scale of ‘qaBBB’ and ‘qaA3’, respectively, assigned to Estithmar Holding (EH). At the same time, CI Ratings has also affirmed the national rating of ‘qaBBB’ assigned to the Trust Certificate Issuance Programme, and the national rating of ‘qaBBB’ on the QAR500mn Series 1 issuance (under this programme). The Outlook for all the ratings is Stable.

The main credit strengths that support the ratings are linked to EH’s satisfactory debt service capacity and sound profitability, although the limited availability of historical consolidated data hinders a proper trend analysis. As a result, reliance has continued to be placed on Group-prepared forecasts – although experience has shown that these appear to be based on reasonable assumptions. Earnings performance over the last 12 months has been in line with (or above) the…