M'sia's RAM to expand overseas
Malaysia's leading credit-rating agency RAM Ratings Services is set to make its presence felt worldwide by attracting more foreign issuers and investors with its recently launched global and Asean rating scales.
The new rating scales, the first of its kind by an Asean rating agency, will assess the creditworthiness of companies both in Asean countries and globally.
RAM Ratings chief executive officer Foo Su Yin said that the global initiative would provide companies with an option, especially those with plans to expand regionally and globally, to tap funds.
“At the same time, it will provide a benchmark as well as an indication of how companies fare in terms of credit standing against their Asean or global peers.
“Besides facilitating cross-border deals, the rating scales will help unlock and mobilise savings in the region for companies to grow and expand,'' Foo said during the launch of the global and Asean rating scales.
The new rating scales compare and measure the best companies globally and in Asean for their credit worthiness, namely, their ability to pay on a timely and adequate manner.
RAM Holdings group CEO K Govindan said that a regional and global move would facilitate and promote an integrated regional capital market and help channel Asia's massive savings to meet the pressing demand for capital by companies looking to expand abroad.
He stressed that RAM was keen to help companies tap the massive liquidity in the region. Backing his arguments with statistics, he said Asean had US$780 billion of foreign exchange reserves with China topping that with a whopping $3.3 trillion. He said the gross national savings in Asia (ex-Japan) was estimated to be around $6.2 trillion in 2012, and it was expected to grow to $8 trillion by 2015.
Besides the mobilisation of funds to emerging economies, he said the move to launch the global and Asean rating scales would boost the sukuk (Islamic bond) market globally and in Malaysia, as the latter was the largest sukuk market in the world in terms of issuance.
More flow of funds from Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries into Asean, including Malaysia, would be intensified, Govindan said, adding that currently RAM had provided rating services for some of its GCC clients.
