PrefBlog

Fitch Ratings has announced (on July 2):

The Negative Outlook reflects the historical volatility in SLF’s earnings and the possibility it may continue at run-rate operating earnings and debt service that is not supportive of the current rating level.

Fitch believes SLF’s ability to improve its run-rate operating earnings will depend in part on how the company deploys the proceeds from the pending sale of Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada (U.S.) and Sun Life Insurance & Annuity Co. of New York to Delaware Life Holdings, a company owned by shareholders of Guggenheim Partners. The two Sun Life companies contain SLF’s U.S. variable annuity (VA) and certain life insurance businesses which have in recent history been a drag on overall earnings and a significant consumer of capital. The sale has been delayed due to regulatory review but Fitch expects it will be successfully completed.
…
The IFS ratings of SLF’s U.S. life subsidiaries remain on Rating Watch Negative. Resolution of the Rating Watch will occur following further discussions with management and completion of the sale, and will likely result in a downgrade of the IFS ratings by at least one notch. Absent discussions with Guggenheim Partners, the ratings will be withdrawn. Assuming no material changes to the credit of the entities involved Fitch may not comment further until completion of the sale.

The key rating triggers that could result in a downgrade include:
–Failure to complete the sale of the company’s run-off U.S. operations;
–A decline in adjusted fixed-charge coverage, excluding equity market and interest rate impacts below 6x;
–A sustained drop in the company’s risk-adjusted capital position with no plans or ability to rectify; this would include the MCCSR ratio falling below 200%;
–An increase in financial leverage to over 25%;
–A large acquisition that involves execution and integration risk or impacts the company’s leverage and capitalization.

The key rating triggers that could result in a return to a Stable Outlook include:
–Completion of the sale of run-off U.S. operations;
–Consistent maintenance of adjusted fixed-charge coverage, excluding equity market and interest rate impacts, of over 6x.

SLF has numerous preferred share issues outstanding: SLF.PR.A, SLF.PR.B, SLF.PR.C, SLF.PR.D and SLF.PR.E (all DeemedRetractible) and SLF.PR.F, SLF.PR.G, SLF.PR.H and SLF.PR.I (all FixedReset).

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 14th, 2013 at 10:09 pm and is filed under Issue Comments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.