Caribbean In­for­ma­tion and Cred­it Rat­ing Ser­vices Lim­it­ed (Cari­CRIS) has as­signed ANSA McAL an ini­tial is­suer cred­it rat­ings of “Cari­AA” on the re­gion­al scale and “ttAA” on the T&T na­tion­al scale by , sig­ni­fy­ing a high lev­el of cred­it­wor­thi­ness in re­la­tion to oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tions in T&T and across the wider Caribbean.

In a no­tice, ANSA McAL dis­closed that Cari­CRIS al­so as­signed the Group a sta­ble out­look, re­flect­ing its ex­pec­ta­tion that ANSA McAL will main­tain strong fi­nan­cial per­for­mance, healthy debt ser­vic­ing met­rics and dis­ci­plined ex­e­cu­tion of its long-term growth strat­e­gy.

Cari­Cris stat­ed the rat­ings recog­nise the Group’s strong mar­ket po­si­tion, di­ver­si­fied port­fo­lio, re­silient earn­ings, sound fi­nan­cial man­age­ment, ro­bust cor­po­rate gov­er­nance and on­go­ing ex­e­cu­tion of its 2X Agen­da.

The agency said the rat­ing al­so re­in­forced ANSA McAL’s rep­u­ta­tion as a fi­nan­cial­ly strong and well-man­aged or­gan­i­sa­tion, help­ing to build con­fi­dence among in­vestors, lenders, busi­ness part­ners and oth­er stake­hold­ers while sup­port­ing fu­ture growth op­por­tu­ni­ties across the re­gion.

The group said the rat­ings from Cari­CRIS are sup­port­ed by sev­er­al key strengths across the com­pa­ny, in­clud­ing:

• ANSA McAL’s strong mar­ket po­si­tion as one of the Caribbean’s largest con­glom­er­ates, with a lead­ing pres­ence across its core bev­er­age, dis­tri­b­u­tion and fi­nan­cial ser­vices sec­tors.

• Con­sis­tent rev­enue growth, prof­itabil­i­ty, and re­silient earn­ings sup­port­ed by a di­ver­si­fied port­fo­lio of busi­ness­es and in­vest­ments.

• Strong cap­i­tal­i­sa­tion, healthy liq­uid­i­ty, and sound debt pro­tec­tion met­rics.

• Dis­ci­plined cor­po­rate gov­er­nance, risk man­age­ment, and sus­tain­abil­i­ty prac­tices.

• Ge­o­graph­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, which helps strength­en for­eign cur­ren­cy earn­ings and sup­ports re­silience amid for­eign ex­change con­straints and glob­al eco­nom­ic pres­sures.

The group said, “This achieve­ment re­flects the col­lec­tive con­tri­bu­tion of em­ploy­ees across the Group. Every busi­ness, func­tion and team plays a role in main­tain­ing the op­er­a­tional ex­cel­lence, fi­nan­cial dis­ci­pline, in­no­va­tion and cus­tomer fo­cus that un­der­pin ANSA McAL’s long-term suc­cess. In­de­pen­dent recog­ni­tion such as this high­lights the im­pact of those every­day ef­forts and the strength of the or­gan­i­sa­tion you help build.”

ANSA McAL said as the com­pa­ny is on the push to ex­e­cute its 2X Agen­da, “this mile­stone re­in­forces the Group’s com­mit­ment to cre­at­ing sus­tain­able val­ue and build­ing a stronger, more com­pet­i­tive busi­ness for the fu­ture.”

Cari­CRIS out­lined the fac­tors that could, in­di­vid­u­al­ly or col­lec­tive­ly, lead to an im­prove­ment in the rat­ings and/or out­look:

• Im­prove­ment in the cred­it rat­ing of the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go;

• A sus­tained re­duc­tion in sov­er­eign ex­po­sure to T&T to be­low 50 per cent of third par­ty rev­enues;

• An im­prove­ment in the gross prof­it (GP) mar­gin to 35 per cent or above sus­tained for two years;

• Ex­pan­sion ini­tia­tives de­liv­er strong re­turns with EBIT­DA mar­gin and/or Group PAT in­creas­ing above 18 per cent and sev­en per cent, re­spec­tive­ly.

An im­prove­ment in the Group’s NPL lev­els to 6.8 per cent or be­low, sus­tained for two years.