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IBCA rates Spain's

N Moratorium

Securities

LONDON: IBCA, the European credit rating agency, said it had assigned long-term ratings of AAA for the forthcoming bond issue and loan classes A and B for Spain's Nuclear Moratorium Securitisation, Fondo de Titulizacion de Activos Resultantes de la Moratoria Nuclear.

"The total issue of 715 billion pesetas in debt becomes the first securitisation of non mortgage assets in Spain", IBCA said in a statement released late on Tuesday.

"The issues are the result of the Spanish government's 1983 decision to declare a moratorium on all nuclear power station construction, which suspended development work on five plants then under construction", IBCA said.

Four electric utilities, Iberdola (IBE.MC), Sevillana (SEV.MC), Endesa and Union Fenosa, owned the plants and the subsequent national electricity system law formally recognised that their owners were entitled to compensation rights to recover their principal investment, it said.

IBCA said the securitisation was unusual in that all the securities being rated had been guaranteed by the state and as such were assigned the same ratings.

"Without such a guarantee there would have been credit differentials between the various securities, resulting in ratings of AAA for the bond issue and loan class A and A minus for loan Class B", it said.-Reuter