Latest ESG Pulse Report Comments On ESG Rating Impact And COVID-19 Vaccine Hope As Second Wave Sets In

PARIS, Nov. 24, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Developments in COVID-19 vaccines are bringing hope but are only the first step toward a return to social and economic normality. Meanwhile, the recent surge in cases--bringing about a second wave of lockdowns in Europe and additional restrictions in many U.S. states--is likely to make things worse for certain industries before they get better.

The latest edition of S&P Global Ratings' The ESG Pulse: COVID-19 Vaccine Hope As Second Wave Sets In published today reports that from April to September we took close to 2,100 ESG-related rating, CreditWatch, and outlook actions. Of these, 775 were downgrades, the bulk (96%) stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. Governance concerns contributed to downgrades on 23 entities and environmental factors to six.

Sovereigns and international public finance remain percentage-wise among the sectors most directly affected by COVID-19, with 25% and 17% of the rated universe affected.

U.S. public finance entities have seen 4% of total ratings affected by ESG, albeit with a wide disparity between sectors. The most affected subsector is public transportation with 45% of entities affected, including several airport downgrades in September. In higher education, the ratings on 30% of entities have been affected by ESG factors over the six months to September.

For corporates and infrastructure, 15% of total ratings have been affected by ESG factors. Rating actions remain heavily concentrated in COVID-19-exposed sectors such as air travel, restaurants, retail, hotels, and leisure. Also worth noting is that some of the rating actions we took in September resulted from climate change and environmental factors.

In the six months, just 1% of structured finance issue ratings were influenced by ESG (solely due to COVID-19). The percentage is materially higher for some segments: 16% of commercial mortgage-backed securities transactions were affected by revised values on underlying assets (notably U.S. malls and hotels) as well as 16% for non-traditional asset classes. The latter includes whole business, aircraft, small business, and triple-net lease securitizations, with ESG-related downgrades in September concentrated in aircraft asset-backed securities.

This report does not constitute a rating action.

S&P Global Ratings is the world's leading provider of independent credit ratings. Our ratings are essential to driving growth, providing transparency and helping educate market participants so they can make decisions with confidence. We have more than 1 million credit ratings outstanding on government, corporate, financial sector and structured finance entities and securities. We offer an independent view of the market built on a unique combination of broad perspective and local insight. We provide our opinions and research about relative credit risk; market participants gain independent information to help support the growth of transparent, liquid debt markets worldwide.

S&P Global Ratings is a division of S&P Global (NYSE: SPGI), which provides essential intelligence for individuals, companies and governments to make decisions with confidence. For more information, visit www.spglobal.com/ratings.  

Update Profile:
If you would like to update your information (telephone number, email address, company, etc.) or change the sectors you receive press releases on, please click here.

Visit SPRatings.com, a free, interactive, and informative portal to access highlights from our credit research offerings. Consider this your portal to perspective: www.spratings.com.  

Regulatory Affairs and Disclaimers | Privacy and Cookie Notice | Terms of Use
Copyright © 2020 by Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC. All rights reserved.

No content (including ratings, credit-related analyses and data, valuations, model, software or other application or output therefrom) or any part thereof (Content) may be modified, reverse engineered, reproduced or distributed in any form by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC or its affiliates (collectively, S&P). The Content shall not be used for any unlawful or unauthorized purposes. S&P and any third-party providers, as well as their directors, officers, shareholders, employees or agents (collectively S&P Parties) do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, timeliness or availability of the Content. S&P Parties are not responsible for any errors or omissions (negligent or otherwise), regardless of the cause, for the results obtained from the use of the Content, or for the security or maintenance of any data input by the user. The Content is provided on an "as is" basis. S&P PARTIES DISCLAIM ANY AND ALL EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR USE, FREEDOM FROM BUGS, SOFTWARE ERRORS OR DEFECTS, THAT THE CONTENT'S FUNCTIONING WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR THAT THE CONTENT WILL OPERATE WITH ANY SOFTWARE OR HARDWARE CONFIGURATION. In no event shall S&P Parties be liable to any party for any direct, indirect, incidental, exemplary, compensatory, punitive, special or consequential damages, costs, expenses, legal fees, or losses (including, without limitation, lost income or lost profits and opportunity costs or losses caused by negligence) in connection with any use of the Content even if advised of the possibility of such damages.

Credit-related and other analyses, including ratings, and statements in the Content are statements of opinion as of the date they are expressed and not statements of fact. S&P's opinions, analyses and rating acknowledgment decisions (described below) are not recommendations to purchase, hold, or sell any securities or to make any investment decisions, and do not address the suitability of any security. S&P assumes no obligation to update the Content following publication in any form or format. The Content should not be relied on and is not a substitute for the skill, judgment and experience of the user, its management, employees, advisors and/or clients when making investment and other business decisions. S&P does not act as a fiduciary or an investment advisor except where registered as such. While S&P has obtained information from sources it believes to be reliable, S&P does not perform an audit and undertakes no duty of due diligence or independent verification of any information it receives. Rating-related publications may be published for a variety of reasons that are not necessarily dependent on action by rating committees, including, but not limited to, the publication of a periodic update on a credit rating and related analyses.

To the extent that regulatory authorities allow a rating agency to acknowledge in one jurisdiction a rating issued in another jurisdiction for certain regulatory purposes, S&P reserves the right to assign, withdraw or suspend such acknowledgment at any time and in its sole discretion. S&P Parties disclaim any duty whatsoever arising out of the assignment, withdrawal or suspension of an acknowledgment as well as any liability for any damage alleged to have been suffered on account thereof.

S&P keeps certain activities of its business units separate from each other in order to preserve the independence and objectivity of their respective activities. As a result, certain business units of S&P may have information that is not available to other S&P business units. S&P has established policies and procedures to maintain the confidentiality of certain non-public information received in connection with each analytical process.

S&P may receive compensation for its ratings and certain analyses, normally from issuers or underwriters of securities or from obligors. S&P reserves the right to disseminate its opinions and analyses. S&P's public ratings and analyses are made available on its Web sites, www.standardandpoors.com (free of charge), and http://www.ratingsdirect.com and www.globalcreditportal.com (subscription), and may be distributed through other means, including via S&P publications and third-party redistributors. Additional information about our ratings fees is available at www.standardandpoors.com/usratingsfees.

Australia

Ratings are statements of opinion, not statements of fact or recommendations to buy, hold, or sell any securities or make any other investment decisions. S&P Global Ratings Australia Pty Ltd holds Australian financial services license number 337565 under the Corporations Act 2001. S&P credit ratings and related research are not intended for and must not be distributed to any person in Australia other than a wholesale client (as defined in Chapter 7 of the Corporations Act). Australian users should only access information about S&P's products and services from www.standardandpoors.com.au. Other S&P Websites are not intended for Australian users.

STANDARD & POOR'S, S&P and RATINGSDIRECT are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC.

To manage your S&P Global Ratings subscription preferences, please click here.

S&P Global Ratings, 55 Water Street, New York, NY 10041 

View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/latest-esg-pulse-report-comments-on-esg-rating-impact-and-covid-19-vaccine-hope-as-second-wave-sets-in-301179950.html

SOURCE S&P Global Ratings