National Finance Company – Long-Term National Rating Lowered to omBBB+; Outlook Revised to Stable

Ref: OM03019 CRA00- 0 1 3 Novem ber 20 20

National Finance Company – Long-T erm National Rating Lowered to ‘omBBB+’; Outlook Revised to Stable

Capital Intelligence Ratings (CI Ratings or CI) today announced that it has lowered the Long-Term Corporate Rating on the Oman National Scale of National Finance Company SAOG (NFC) to ‘omBBB+’ from ‘omA-’, and affirmed its Short-Term Corporate Rating on the same scale at ‘omA2’. At the same time, CI Ratings has revised the Outlook on the ratings to Stable from Negative.

Th e main driver for the downgrade of the Long-Term Corporate Rating is the lowering of the Omani Sovereign rating in April, and subsequent affirmation in August this year, at ‘BB+’/‘B’/Neg ative from ‘BBB-’/‘A3’/Negative . While the lowered sovereign rating for Oman is not directly relevant to a rating on the Oman National Scale, the reasons for the sovereign downgrade reflect stresses in t he operating environment…