Infrastructure securities rated by Moody’s demonstrated better long-term credit quality and modestly lower default rates as compared to non-financial corporate (NFC) issuers, the credit agency reported this week.
In a report, it said that 92% of its infrastructure ratings are investment grade at year-end 2018, as compared to only 40% of NFC ratings.
The study also found that infrastructure ratings were 62% less volatile than NFC ratings, which it said was largely due to the inherent stability of the US municipal infrastructure sector.
Varun Agarwal, vice president and senior analyst at Moody’s, said: “By looking at credit risk measured in the aggregate, we are able to compare the overall riskiness of the sector compared to NFCs broadly.”
“In general, we found that infrastructure debt securities experienced substantially lower rates of credit loss when compared to NFC issuers.”
