Lebanon Rating Cut Deeper Into Junk by Moody’s on Default Risks

Lebanon’s debt rating was cut by Moody’s Investors Service, which cited increased risks that the Middle East nation will undertake measures that may constitute a default.

The country’s credit score was lowered one step to Caa1, the rating company said in a statement. That’s seven levels below investment grade and a notch worse than the B- that S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings give Lebanon. The outlook was changed to stable from negative.

Finance Minister Ali Hasan Khalil roiled bond markets this month when he told a newspaper the Lebanon may restructure its debt as part of a plan to repair its public finances. The country has been battered by sluggish economic growth, a political impasse that has left it without a functioning government for months and the war in neighboring Syria. Khalil later denied the plans and officials got together to reassure investors the country would honor its obligations on time.

“The probability has increased that a new government, once one is formed, may take measures aimed at reducing Lebanon’s very large gross financing needs involving some liability management that constitutes a default under Moody’s definition,” Elisa Parisi-Capone, a Moody’s senior analyst in New York, wrote in the statement.

Lebanon’s debt burden was 141 percent of gross domestic product in 2018, excluding domestic debt of public entities, Moody’s estimated.

The country’s dollar bonds gained on Monday after Qatar said it plans to buy $500 million of the government’s debt to support the Lebanese economy. The yield on Lebanon’s dollar debt due 2021 fell 82 basis points to 14.04 percent, according to prices compiled by Bloomberg. The rate reached 14.86 percent on Jan. 18, the highest on a closing basis since the bonds were issued in 2006.