Moody's on March 5 assigned Virgin Money Holdings (UK) Plc Baa3/Prime-3 long and short-term issuer ratings, with a stable outlook.
The rating agency also affirmed unit Virgin Money Plc's Baa2/Prime-2 long- and short-term local-currency bank deposit and issuer ratings, "baa2" baseline and adjusted baseline credit assessments and A3(cr)/P-2(cr) long- and short-term counterparty risk assessments.
The outlook on the long-term bank deposit rating of Virgin Money was revised to positive from stable, while the outlook on the long-term issuer rating remains stable.
The issuer rating on Virgin Money Holdings is based on the unit's baseline credit assessment, the results of Moody's advanced loss-given failure analysis and a low probability of government support.
The positive outlook on Virgin Money Plc is based on the agency's view that planned debt issuance by the two companies — to comply with the minimum requirement for own funds and eligible liabilities, known as MREL, and to fund growth — is likely to result in lower loss-given failure for the bank's junior depositors.
