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\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n \n \t\t\u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Overview — We lowered the long-term foreign currency sovereign credit rating on the Republic of South Africa to ‘BBB’ from ‘BBB+’ and the long-term local currency rating to ‘A-‘ from ‘A’ on Oct. 12, 2012. — We subsequently revised our mapping guidelines for our South Africa national credit rating scale. — We are raising our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-15636","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15636\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Overview\n -- We lowered the long-term foreign currency sovereign credit rating on \nthe Republic of South Africa to 'BBB' from 'BBB+' and the long-term local \ncurrency rating to 'A-' from 'A' on Oct. 12, 2012.\n -- We subsequently revised our mapping guidelines for our South Africa \nnational credit rating scale.\n -- We are raising our long-term national scale rating on South African \nmobile operator Vodacom Group Ltd. to 'zaAA+' from 'zaAA-' and affirming our \nshort-term rating at 'zaA-1'. \n\nRating Action\nOn Oct. 16, 2012, Standard Poor's Ratings Services raised its long-term \nSouth Africa national scale rating on Vodacom Group Ltd. to 'zaAA+'\nfrom 'zaAA-' and affirmed its short-term rating at 'zaA-1'.\n\nRationale\nThe rating action follows Standard Poor's Ratings Services' revision on Oct. \n15, 2012, of guidelines for its South Africa national credit rating scale (see \n\"Standard Poor's Revises Mapping Guidance For South Africa National Credit \nRating Scale Following Sovereign Downgrade,\" published Oct. 15, 2012). The \nrevised mapping follows the downgrade of our sovereign credit ratings on the \nRepublic of South Africa on Oct. 12, 2012. The changes in the mapping table do \nnot reflect any change in the fundamental credit quality of any individual \nissuer within the country except for the sovereign. South Africa national \nscale credit ratings express relative opinions about the creditworthiness of \nan issuer or credit quality of an individual debt issue, from strongest to \nweakest, within a universe of credit risk within the country. The changes aim \nat providing more room for differentiating credit quality within the country. \nWith the revised mapping, the government of the Republic of South Africa \nremains the most creditworthy borrower within the South African context. \n\nWe continue to view South Africa-based mobile telecommunications services \nprovider Vodacom Group Ltd.'s business risk profile as \"satisfactory\" and its \nfinancial risk profile as \"intermediate.\"\n\nThe ratings on Vodacom are supported by the group's resilient and leading \nposition in the maturing South African mobile telephony market. Rating \nstrengths also include the group's sustained solid free cash flow generation \nand moderately leveraged balance sheet.\n\nHowever, our expectations of increasing competition and adverse regulatory \nchanges over the next few years in South Africa constrain the ratings. \nAdditional credit quality constraints include sizable infrastructure \ninvestment requirements and growing exposure to higher-than-average political, \noperational, and currency risks in the countries in which Vodacom operates \noutside South Africa.\n\nRelated Criteria And Research\n -- Standard Poor's Revises Mapping Guidance For South Africa National \nCredit Rating Scale Following Sovereign Downgrade, Oct. 15, 2012\n -- Methodology: Business Risk\/Financial Risk Matrix Expanded, Sept. 18, \n2012\n -- Methodology And Assumptions: Liquidity Descriptors For Global \nCorporate Issuers, Sept. 28, 2011\n -- Principles Of Credit Ratings, Feb. 16, 2011\n -- 2008 Corporate Criteria: Ratios And Adjustments, April 15, 2008 \n -- 2008 Corporate Criteria: Analytical Methodology, April 15, 2008\n\nRatings List\nUpgraded; Ratings Affirmed\n To From\nVodacom Group Ltd.\n Corporate Credit Rating\n South African National Scale zaAA+\/--\/zaA-1 zaAA-\/--\/zaA-1\n\n\nComplete ratings information is available to subscribers of RatingsDirect on \nthe Global Credit Portal at www.globalcreditportal.com. All ratings affected \nby this rating action can be found on Standard Poor's public Web site at \nwww.standardandpoors.com. Use the Ratings search box located in the left \ncolumn.<\/pre>\n