S&P Global Ratings on Nov. 30 took various ratings actions on insurance and reinsurance companies exposed to the South African market.
The agency lowered Old Mutual Plc unit Old Mutual Life Assurance Co. (South Africa) Ltd.'s local-currency counterparty credit ratings and financial strength ratings to BB+ from BBB- and its national scale rating to zaAA+/zaA-1+ from zaAAA/ zaA-1+. The global scale ratings of AIG Life South Africa Ltd., AIG South Africa Ltd., Santam Ltd. and Allianz Group unit Allianz Global Corporate and Specialty South Africa Ltd. were downgraded to BB+ from BBB-. The national scale ratings of AIG Life South Africa, AIG South Africa and Allianz Global Corporate and Specialty South Africa were downgraded to zaAA+ from zaAAA.
Also downgraded were the global scale ratings of Santam Structured Insurance Ltd., Santam Structured Reinsurance Ltd. PCC and Santam Structured Reinsurance DAC to BB from BB+ while the national scale rating of Santam Structured Insurance was lowered to zaAA- from zaAA.
S&P also lowered the national scale ratings of Sanlam Life Insurance Ltd. to zaAA+ from zaAAA; of Sanlam Ltd. to zaA from zaA+; and of Sanlam Capital Markets Pty. Ltd. to zaAA- from zaAA. The short-term national scale rating of Sanlam Capital Markets was affirmed at zaA-1+.
Additionally, the agency lowered the global scale ratings to A- from AA- of Haftpflichtverband der Deutschen Industrie VVaG unit Hannover Reinsurance Africa Ltd., Hannover Life Reassurance Africa Ltd., General Reinsurance Africa Ltd, Munich Re unit Munich Reinsurance Co. of Africa Ltd and SCOR SE unit SCOR Africa Ltd.
The rating agency also lowered the long-term national scale rating of Standard Bank Group Ltd. unit Liberty Group Ltd. to zaAA+ from zaAAA and affirmed its short-term national scale rating at zaA-1+.
The A- long-term global scale ratings of African Reinsurance Corp. South Africa Ltd. were placed on CreditWatch with negative implications.
The agency affirmed the global scale and national scale ratings of GIC Re South Africa Ltd. at BB+ and zaAA+, respectively, with the outlook on the long-term global scale ratings remaining stable.
The outlooks on the long-term global scale ratings of Allianz Global Corporate and Specialty South Africa, the AIG entities, Old Mutual Life Assurance and Santam Ltd. were all changed to stable from negative.
The ratings actions followed the downgrade of South Africa's long-term foreign-currency sovereign credit rating to BB from BB+ and its long-term local-currency rating to BB+ from BBB-.
S&P Global Ratings and S&P Global Market Intelligence are owned by S&P Global Inc.
