Moody's rates CMA CGM 'stable', but not out of the woods

MOODY's Investors Service, after a long silence, has given a fresh credit assessment of troubled Marseilles carrier CMA CGM, assigning it a Ba3 "stable" rating while saying the company remained at risk.


The new rating is the first since June 2009, when, at the carrier's request, Moody's withdrew all ratings for CMA CGM, reported Newark's Journal of Commerce, also noting that since then, the company has undergone a radical restructuring.


But Moody's said CMA CGM, the world's third biggest container carrier, was still at risk of default if it failed to secure US$800 million from a bond sale and fully completed financial restructuring.


Moody's senior credit officer Marco Vetulli said the new rating "reflects the weakness of CMA CGM's credit metrics despite its high profile. The company's sizeable capital investment plan limits free cash flow and, as a result, its credit metrics remain weak, constraining the upside potential of the rating in the near term."


The appearance of Turkey's Yildirim as a major shareholder is CMA CGM's first major initiative to diversify ownership, but was not enough to fix the problem, said the rating agency. Still, Moody's expects the French shipping giant to perform "relatively well" 2011.
(Source:http://www.schednet.com)