Mubasher: Standard and Poor's (S&P) has maintained Kuwait Projects Holding’s (KIPCO) long-term issue credit rating at ‘BBB-’ and the short-term issue credit rating at ‘A-3’. 

The company's outlook was also maintained at ‘Negative', according to a stock exchange statement on Sunday.    

The American rating agency highlighted that KIPCO’s strong liquidity, which amounted to about $1.4 billion cash by 2019 year-end, is one of the key strength points supporting the rating. Furthermore, KIPCO has no debt maturities until 2023, except for the $500 million due in July 2020. 

On the contrary, one of the key risks the company is facing is the visible pressure on the loan-to-value (LTV) ratio, which stood at 32.8% as of December 2019 above the 30% threshold, despite a capital injection in 2019.     

In addition, the underperformance of some investments such as OSN could affect the ratios unless a significant recovery is seen over the next six months. 

It is worth pinpointing that in January, Moody's Investors Service affirmed KIPCO’s Baa3 long-term issuer rating and P-3 short-term issuer rating, and revised KIPCO’s rating outlook to negative from stable.