S&P Global Ratings upgraded its long-term issuer credit ratings on Macquarie Group Ltd. and units, including Macquarie Bank Ltd. and Macquarie Financial Holdings Pty. Ltd., due to the group's and the bank's improved risk management capabilities, according to a Dec. 11 statement.

The rating agency raised its long-term issuer credit ratings on Macquarie Group and Macquarie Financial Holdings to BBB+ from BBB, as well as similar ratings on Macquarie Bank to A+ from A. Meanwhile, the agency raised the long- and short-term issuer credit ratings on Macquarie Bank unit Macquarie International Finance Ltd. to A/A-1 from A-/A-2.

Meanwhile, S&P affirmed the A-2 short-term issuer credit ratings on Macquarie Group and Macquarie Financial Holdings, and the A-1 short-term ratings on Macquarie Bank.

The outlook on all the long-term issuer credit ratings is stable.

Ratings said it believes that Macquarie Group's and Macquarie Bank's risk management capabilities have improved across a wide and complex range of credit and noncredit risk exposures to various businesses and geographies. The rating agency noted that its assessment takes into account the group's performance and risk management outcomes before and after the global financial crisis, the group's substantially complete internal reorganization and the reorientation of the group's and the bank's earnings toward repeatable and sustainable income sources, among other things.

This S&P Global Market Intelligence news article may contain information about credit ratings issued by S&P Global Ratings, a separately managed division of S&P Global. Descriptions in this news article were not prepared by S&P Global Ratings. The original S&P Global Ratings documents referred to in this news brief can be found in the sources section.