April 12, 2016
Contact: Brad Captain, Corporate Relations; Ling Wang, Banking & Investor Relations
DULLES, Va.—Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services (S&P) has revised its outlook on the National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation (CFC) to “stable” from “negative.” S&P also affirmed its A and A-1 long- and short-term issuer credit ratings on CFC.
The updated assessment, released today, eliminates—from S&P’s calculations of CFC’s total adjusted capital—the impact of unrealized gains and losses associated with interest rate hedges. CFC uses swaps solely to hedge interest rate risk.
Commenting on the revised outlook, CFC CFO J. Andrew Don noted that, “Unrealized gains and losses from interest rate swaps are non-cash events and, accordingly, have no impact on CFC operating results.”
S&P added that its ratings reflect CFC’s unique market position in lending to electric cooperatives; the low credit risk of CFC’s loan portfolio; and CFC’s access to funding from members and non-capital market sources.
This press release contains forward-looking statements, which are based on certain assumptions and describe our future plans, strategies and expectations, and are generally identified by our use of words such as “intend,” “plan,” “may,” “should,” “will,” “project,” “estimate,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “expect,” “continue,” “potential,” “opportunity,” and similar expressions, whether in the negative or affirmative. All statements about future expectations or projections are forward-looking statements. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in our forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, actual results and performance could materially differ. Factors that could cause future results to vary from current
expectations are included in our annual and quarterly periodic reports previously filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update or publicly release any revisions to forward-looking statements to reflect events, circumstances or changes in expectations after the date on which the statement is made.
Created and owned by America’s electric cooperative network, the National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation (CFC)—a nonprofit finance cooperative with approximately $24 billion in assets—provides unparalleled industry expertise, flexibility and responsiveness to serve the needs of our member-owners. CFC is an equal opportunity provider. Visit us online at www.nrucfc.coop.