The Country Ceiling and Sovereign Rating Relationship Exemplified by the Case of Poland

Abstract

The aim of the article is to answer the question whether the ratings of entities registered in Poland are limited by the sovereign rating of the country. The author theorises that the sovereign rating of Poland does not constitute the upper limit for ratings granted by the Big Three (Fitch Ratings, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s) to Polish financial and non‑financial entities. The databases of three leading rating agencies were queried, selecting all (52) long‑term foreign ratings assigned to entities registered in Poland. The analysis indicates that currently no confirmation can be found of the use of the country ceiling principle, according to which the rating of any entity registered in a given country cannot be higher than its sovereign rating, by rating agencies (7.7% of rated entities in Poland is given higher rating than the sovereign one). This is at the same time a higher percentage than the average for all Big Three ratings, amounting to approx. 3%. The country ceiling is an upper, potential sovereign rating bound, resulting from the T&C risk. In the case of entities registered in Poland, however, their rating is a maximum of one notch higher than the sovereign rating, which in turn is in line with the policy that Standard & Poor’s officially announced as the only agency among the Big Three (the rating of an entity registered in a given jurisdiction can be up to four notches higher than the sovereign rating). The analysis of ratings assigned to Polish entities also indicates that a rating above the sovereign rating awarded by a given credit rating agency does not translate into similar actions of other agencies. This paper analyses the relationships between the concepts of country risk, T&C risk and sovereign risk. Another original contribution is establishing how the country ceiling principle used by rating agencies works in practice and verifying the scope of application of this principle in the Polish economic reality.