Muscat Finance – Ratings on Oman National Scale Affirmed; Outlook Revised to Stable from Negative

Capital Intelligence Ratings (CI Ratings or CI) today announced that it has affirmed the Long-Term and Short-Term Issuer Ratings on the Oman National Scale of Muscat Finance S.A.O.G. (MF or the Company) at ‘omBBB-’ and ‘omA3’, respectively. The Outlook on the ratings is revised to Stable from Negative.

The revision of the Outlook to Stable is supported by the improvement in both FR asset quality and profitability in 2024. Other positives include a new senior management team and their subsequent new strategy roll-out in terms of business growth and addressing the weakness in asset quality. MF’s ratings are underpinned by an improving operating environment in Oman, along with MF’s sound franchise as the oldest NBFI in Oman and growth in business volumes that reversed the declining trend of the past five years. Additionally the ratings are supported by MF’s comfortable leverage (albeit too low for proper profitability) and well-established and still fairly wide…