The changed economic context and, consequently, the different needs of exporting companies and investors have led Sace to modify its rating system. This system was illustrated today during the presentation of the new 2012 Risk Map. The most important changes concern the replacement of the single rating with eight ratings focus on different profiles and the change of the rating basis to come expressed in cents.
The new ratings will concern three macro areas (nonpayment, regulatory instability e political violence) and will be divided into eight sub-categories. The risk of non-payment will be analyzed with the ratings relating to the sovereign risk, banking, big business and pmi; the risks of regulatory instability are linked to risk of expropriation, of contractual violations need currency conversion and transfer; finally the risk of political violence is expressed through a single rating.
The new rating modulation was also created to give a more precise response to the "concerns of companies". In fact, not all companies will have the same concerns, in fact the exporters will be more interested in having a measure of the reliability, especially in payments, of the counterparties, while the investors or developers they will be more sensitive to operational context in which they will have to act.
Risk measurement will take place, as previously mentioned, on a scale ranging from 0 to 100 (replacing the previous system which ranged from 1 to 9) and will be divided into three categories: low risk by 0 to 30, medium risk from 31 to 70 ed high risk from 71 to 100.
At the same time as the presentation of the new Risk Map, Sace commented on the evolution of the various risk profiles from 2007 to today, from which analysis shows that the equation high-risk emerging countries and risk-free advanced countries is no longer as realistic as it used to be .
In fact, analyzing the risk of non-payment you can see how advanced markets, despite having low levels of risk, have recorded the highest percentage increase (+ 59 %) followed by the countries of emerging Europe and the CIS (+5%). All other areas kept risk stable or slightly declining as theLatin america( -5%) and theSub-Saharan Africa where there was a slight reduction in the average level of risk which, however, stands at levels much higher than the average (81 vs. 63).
The risks associated with regulatory instability should generally be inversely proportional to the level of development of the economic system, therefore low in advanced countries and higher in emerging ones. However, the financial turbulence and the crisis of macroeconomic fundamentals, especially in the euro area, have led to an increase in transfer and convertibility risks. Positive news comes in relation to risks of expropriation and breach of contract which have significantly decreased in many countries of sub-Saharan Africa and in Eastern Europe and the CIS countries.
Il risk of political violence it decreased almost everywhere in the analysis period with the exception of Middle Eastern and North African countries. It seems quite clear how this figure is influenced by the riots that have characterized the Arab spring during the 2011
