S&P's CreditWeek: May 31st, 2006
In This Issue: As Housing Slows, So Slows The Economy?: The end of the housing boom presents two dangers to the U.S. economy. First, lower housing activity will be a drag on economic growth. Second, higher interest rates and a lack of further home price appreciation will restrict homeowners' ability to use their homes as giant ATMs, thus, hurting spending power. If these changes occur gradually, the overall economic impact will be moderate. But if home buil...
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S&P's CreditWeek: May 24th, 2006
In This Issue: Music Industry Update: The M&A Song And Dance Could Start Again: When those who follow the $21 billion global music industry put their ears to the ground, M&A rumors are one thing they are used to hearing. The recorded music industry is fairly consolidated.
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S&P's CreditWeek: May 17th, 2006
In This Issue: Avian Flu No Threat To European Corporate Ratings-For Now: The virus currently does not pass easily to humans from birds, and it is uncertain if or when it might mutate to spread easily among humans. But if this were to occur, it could lead to a pandemic, says the World Health Organization. The IMF says a severe pandemic is likely to have a significant impact on the global economy.
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S&P's CreditWeek: May 10th, 2006
In This Issue: Filling The Funding Gap For African Sovereigns After Debt Relief: Under the heavily indebted poor countries initiative and associated IMF economic programs, the debt forgiveness has been largely accompanied by political and macroeconomic stabilization, increased success on structural reform, improved governance standards, and sound economic policies.
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S&P's CreditWeek: May 3rd, 2006
In This Issue: Leveraged Loans:White Hot Liquidity, Red Hot Risk: It is clear that the loan market's evolution from an opaque, relationshipbased market to one that is more transparent and open to nonbank, nonrelationship-based investors has led to a huge influx of institutional investor capital. This burgeoning investor appetite for loans has swamped the supply of new loan issuance, despite issuance being at record levels, creating what appears to be a syst...
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S&P's CreditWeek: April 26th, 2006
In This Issue: The Heat Is On Russian Monopoly Gazprom To Prove It's A Reliable Gas Supplier: Russia is currently responsible for about 22% of the world's gas production, about 12% of oil production, and is one of the world's largest exporters of oil and gas. The country's gas supplies are exported solely via Gazprom, which accounted for 28% of gas supplies to Europe in 2005. With the group playing such a prominent role in Europe and the rest of the world, ...
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S&P's CreditWeek: April 19th, 2006
In This Issue: Rating The PPP Sector After 10 Years Of Evolution: The public-private partnership (PPP) market is still very much evolving, as is the absolute and relative risk profile of PPP projects. Since its introduction in the early 1990s, the PPP sector has grown in importance as a means of delivering public sector assets using private contracting and financial expertise. Over the past decade, Standard & Poor's Ratings Services has rated and review...
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S&P's CreditWeek: April 12th, 2006
In This Issue: European Economic Forecast: Entering A New Cycle: The European Central Bank undertook the second interest rate hike of its current monetary tightening cycle in March 2006, and given its focus on headline rather than core inflation, further hikes to 3% by year-end 2006 are in the cards. This might squeeze a nascent recovery in corporate investment, which could also be dampened by shareholder-friendly activities such as share buybacks and large...
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S&P's CreditWeek: April 5th, 2006
In This Issue: Commercial Aerospace Recovery Takes Wing: The impressive order activity in 2005 indicates that many airlines have overcome a severe downturn in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and other shocks to the aviation system in the 2001-2003 period. At the same time, a growing global fleet and high aircraft utilization continue to benefit aftermarket suppliers of spare parts and services, an important business for a number of rated compan...
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S&P's CreditWeek: March 29th, 2006
In This Issue: Global LNG Shipping Projects May Be On Course
For Investment Grade: Standard & Poor's Ratings Services finds that project finance LNG shipping transactions have the potential to reach investment-grade credit ratings. Since LNG ships are part of the value chain linking the LNG plant and the regasification terminal, debt ratings on LNG ships will largely derive from the rating on the LNG plant, which in most cases, will set a ceiling for th...
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S&P's CreditWeek: March 22nd, 2006
In This Issue: Still Miles To Go Along The Battered Gulf Coast: The recovery has been slow, particularly in Louisiana, where New Orleans lost about $6 billion of economic output in 2005. The pain is not yet over. Despite the city's halting steps toward recovery, that amount may double in 2006.
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S&P's CreditWeek: March 15th, 2006
In This Issue: For Carmakers, No Easy Drive To Growth: Auto markets in industrialized countries are maturing, and as a result, car sales there are-and will continue to be-essentially stagnant. Thus in the U.S. and Europe, winners and losers henceforth will be decided by who can squeeze out the largest market share, while trading buyers up to more expensive models, as well as who can cope with the challenge of rising energy costs.
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S&P's CreditWeek: March 8th, 2006
In This Issue: Study Of China's Top 50 Banks Finds A Polarized Sector Ripe For Consolidation: Few should be unfamiliar with China's large state-owned commercial banks, some of which are now among the largest financial institutions in the world. In recent years, these banks have attracted foreign investments by the tens of billions of dollars, as well as substantial strategic stakes taken by global institutions.
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S&P's CreditWeek: March 1st, 2006
In This Issue: U.S. Affordable Housing Sector On Firm Ground In 2006, Despite Many Challenges: Driven mostly by rising interest rates and the spread between tax-exempt and taxable mortgages, Standard & Poor's Ratings Services believes that municipal housing bond issuance will be on the upswing in 2006, and that overall credit quality is expected to be stable. These expectations certainly bring a little more excitement into the U.S. housing sector, which...
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S&P's CreditWeek: February 22nd, 2006
In This Issue: Annual 2005 Global Corporate Default Study And Rating Transitions: A total of 37 corporate defaults were recorded globally in 2005, affecting rated debt worth US$42.5 billion. Of the total, the U.S. recorded 32 defaults, whereas Europe recorded one, affecting rated debt worth US$41.6 billion and US$378 million, respectively. The remaining four defaults were a Canada-based telecommunications company, a Japan-based automotive company, a Uruguay...
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S&P's CreditWeek: February 15th, 2006
In This Issue: Global Government Issuance Steady At US$5.56 Trillion In 2006, Credit Quality Improves: In its second annual survey of government debt issuance, Standard & Poor's projects 2006 medium- and long-term commercial borrowing by national, regional, and local governments worldwide to be little changed from 2005, at US$5.56 trillion. Underlying global issuance volumes are still trending upward slightly, taking account of the strength of the U.S. ...
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S&P's CreditWeek: February 8th, 2006
In This Issue: 2006 Fire Dog Year Shines Brightly For Asian Banks: A confluence of favorable environmental and operational factors indicate that the outlook for Asian banks remains bright going into 2006-year of the Fire Dog in the Chinese lunar calendar. Nevertheless, bank management teams still need to sink their teeth into outstanding issues to prepare for unexpected shocks and the inevitable future cyclical downturn. Still-strong (albeit slowing) region...
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S&P's CreditWeek: February 1st, 2006
In This Issue: U.S. Consumer Credit: Another Year Older And Deeper In Debt: American consumers have run up their highest debt in U.S. history, both in absolute terms and relative to income. They are borrowing and spending so freely that in the second quarter of 2005, the household saving rate was negative for the first time in the 57-year history of the quarterly data.
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S&P's CreditWeek: January 25th, 2006
In This Issue: Turkish Banking Growth Potential Spurs Western Investment: Although major Western banks have been represented in Turkey for a long time through branches or subsidiaries, majority-owned foreign banks accounted for less than 5% of the system's assets at Sept. 30, 2004, rising to 14% by Sept. 30, 2005.
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S&P's CreditWeek: January 18th, 2006
In This Issue: Global Interest Rates On The Rise: Healthy global economic growth and higher energy prices have increased concerns over accelerating inflation, both among investors and central banks. While indicators suggest little pass through of higher energy prices into core inflation or wage growth, inflation expectations have risen and central banks are moving to fight higher actual inflation.
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S&P's CreditWeek: January 11th, 2006
In This Issue: Latin America Faces Richer Macroeconomics But Poor Growth Prospects: While positive over the short term, Standard & Poor's Ratings Services is certainly less optimistic about the medium- to long-term economic prospects for Latin American sovereigns after their strong performance in 2005.
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S&P's CreditWeek: January 4th, 2006
In This Issue: European Stock Exchanges: Ratings Balance Shareholders' Demands Against Utility Role: European securities exchanges have transformed themselves into service providers to the securities and investment industry, and have gone from mutual ownership to being profitseeking businesses.
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