TBILISI

Fitch Ratings has assigned JSC TBC Bank’s upcoming issue of U.S, dollar-denominated perpetual additional Tier 1 (AT1) notes an expected long-term rating of ‘B-(EXP)’.

TBC Bank is one of the two biggest commercial banks in Georgia and is listed on the London Stock Exchange.

The expected amount of the issue is $100 million. The notes will rank pari passu among themselves and the existing AT1 subordinated obligations of the bank. The final rating is contingent upon the receipt of final documents conforming to information already received.

The notes are rated three notches below TBC’s Viability Rating (VR) of ‘bb-‘.

According to Fitch’s Bank Rating Criteria, this is the highest rating that can be assigned to deeply subordinated notes with fully discretionary coupon omission issued by banks with a VR anchor of ‘bb-‘.

“The notching reflects the notes’ higher loss severity in light of their deep subordination and additional non-performance risk relative to the VR given a high write-down trigger and fully discretionary coupons,” Fitch said in a report.

TBC Bank said in August that its net profit increased to 403.4 million lari ($130 million) in the first half of the year as restrictions to curb the spread of the COVID-19 started to be eased.

Net profit increased from 69.2 million lari in the same period last year, the bank said.

TBC Bank’s total assets rose 11 percent year-on-year to 22.1 million lari as of June 30. Total gross loans and advances to customers rose 12 percent to 15.3 million lari, total customer deposits rose 24 percent to 12.9 million lari.

Georgia’s banking sector, which includes 15 commercial banks, of which 14 have foreign capital, started to show its first signs of recovery at the beginning of the year, when some of the restrictions imposed by the pandemic were first eased.

In March, Fitch Ratings revised the outlook on TBC Bank to “stable” from “negative”, while affirming its long-term Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs). The agency said that the revision of the outlook to “stable” reflected “reduced pressure on the bank’s credit profile from the pandemic and contraction of the Georgian economy.”

Fitch said that the funding and liquidity profile of TBC had been stable as the bank was largely funded by customer deposits (66 percent of liabilities) and there had been no material outflows at times of market turbulence in 2020.

The agency added that it expected that TBC’s pre-impairment profit was sufficient to absorb any additional credit losses from the pandemic without jeopardising its financial profile.