ISTANBUL — Rating companies are consistently wrong on Turkey and have “misrated” the country by about three levels, Royal Bank of Scotland said on Thursday.
“It is two to three notches mis-rated by any fair assessment,” RBS chief emerging markets economist Tim Ash said after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had lashed out at Standard & Poor’s (S&P) on Thursday for cutting Turkey’s outlook earlier this week. “It should be investment grade already.”
S&P on Tuesday cut the outlook on Turkey’s rating to stable from positive, reducing prospects for an upgrade over the next 12 months. The company rates Turkey BB, the second-highest non-investment grade ranking. Fitch Ratings, which has Turkey at BB+, one step below investment grade, cut its outlook to stable from positive in November, citing its current-account deficit.
Mr Erdogan called S&P’s revision of Turkey’s outlook “strange” and “ideological” in a speech in Istanbul. “If necessary, we’ll make them pay with a statement that we don’t recognise S&P,” he said, without explaining what that entailed.
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via BusinessDay – RBS agrees Turkey’s ratings ‘are wrong’.
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