Fitch Downgrades Afreximbank to ‘BB+’/Stable Amid Concerns Over Ghana’s Debt, Withdraws Ratings

• Declares bank’s inclusion in Ghana’s restructuring underlines its weakening policy importanceJames Emejo in AbujaFitch Ratings has downgraded African Export-Import Bank’s (Afreximbank) Long-Term Issuer Default Rating (IDR) to ‘BB+’ from ‘BBB-’. “The bank’s inclusion in Ghana’s restructuring underlines its weakening policy importance, in our view.”The rating institution also said, “Our latest assessment of Afreximbank’s ‘high’ business profile risk underpins the ‘high risk’ quality of governance assessment, and ‘high’ strategy risk. The statement added that the solvency assessment balanced the bank’s ‘strong’ capitalisation and ‘moderate’ risk profile. Fitch stated, “Afreximbank’s ‘bbb+’ solvency assessment reflects both ‘strong’ capitalisation and ‘moderate’ solvency risks. “The ‘moderate’ solvency risks assessment reflects ‘high’ credit risk, ‘weak’ risk management policies, ‘low’ concentration risk and ‘very low’ equity risk.