May 9, 2011
Greece’s credit rating was cut two levels to B from BB- by Standard & Poor’s, which said further reductions are possible as the risk of default rises.
Another cut would make Greece the lowest-rated country in Europe as today’s reduction, the fourth by S&P since April 2010, left it even with Belarus. The yield on Greek 10-year bonds rose 21 basis points to 15.7 percent, more than twice the level of a year ago when Greece accepted an international bailout.
The S&P decision came on the first business day after an unannounced Friday evening meeting of European finance ministers May 6 in which they agreed Greece needed more help to avoid a restructuring. Extended repayment terms and demands for collateral may be part of a new aid plan. Moody’s Investors Service today placed Greece’s B1 rating on review for downgrade.
“The downgrade reflects our view of increasing sentiment among Greece’s key euro-zone official creditors to extend the debt payment maturities of their 80 billion euros ($115 billion) of bilateral loans pooled by the European Commission,” S&P said in an e-mailed statement. “As part of such an extension, we believe the euro-zone creditor governments would likely seek ‘comparability of treatment’ from commercial creditors in the form of their similarly extending bond and loan maturities.”
A year after Greece received a 110 billion-euro aid package that aimed to stem the spread of the region’s sovereign crisis, the nation’s debt is rising as it faces record borrowing costs. Two-year bonds yield more than 25 percent, indicating investors are betting Greece won’t be able to return to markets as planned under the bailout next year, when it was due to sell 25 billion euros to 30 billion euros of bonds.
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