Standard & Poor on Friday cut Nigeria’s speculative sovereign long-term foreign currency credit rating one notch to B-plus from BB-minus, citing its costly bank bailout and falling oil revenues.
But fellow ratings agency Fitch said the bailout could have a positive effect while Nigeria’s financial markets began to stabilise after a week of uncertainty.
Last Friday, the Nigerian central bank stepped in to rescue five banks with a 400 billion naira ($2.6 billion) injection of capital and warned these defaulting debtors that they would face legal action unless they repaid the funds.
Nigeria, sub-Saharan Africa’s second-biggest economy, has a stable outlook, S&P said in a statement, adding that the financial, economic and political risks are balanced by a strong external and fiscal balance sheet.
“The lowering of the sovereign rating on Nigeria reflects our view of the government’s reduced fiscal flexibility due to costs associated with its recent bail-out of five large domestic banks, and also the fall-off in government oil revenue,” the firm said in a statement.
“In our opinion, the central bank’s action has begun a welcome restructuring of Nigeria’s banking system, but it also reveals deep problems in Nigeria’s credit markets, with the extent of problem loans beyond our previous estimates,” S&P said.
Fitch Ratings said earlier on Friday it did not see any immediate sovereign rating implications from the central bank’s actions.
The firm applauded the bailout and said it did not think further government assistance on the same scale was likely.