Caribbean In­for­ma­tion and Cred­it Rat­ing Ser­vices Lim­it­ed (Cari­CRIS) has is­sued im­proved rat­ings for Sagi­cor Group Ja­maica.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, Cari­CRIS stat­ed it had as­signed is­suer/cor­po­rate cred­it rat­ings of CariA+ (Lo­cal Cur­ren­cy Rat­ing) and CariA (For­eign Cur­ren­cy Rat­ing) on the re­gion­al rat­ing scale and jmAAA (Lo­cal Cur­ren­cy Rat­ing) and jmAA+ (For­eign Cur­ren­cy Rat­ing) on the na­tion­al scale to SGJ.

Cari­CRIS said, “These rat­ings in­clude a 1-notch cred­it up­lift for the high like­li­hood of sup­port, if need­ed, from SGJ’s ul­ti­mate par­ent com­pa­ny, Sagi­cor Fi­nan­cial Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (SFC). The re­gion­al scale rat­ings in­di­cate that the lev­el of cred­it­wor­thi­ness of SGJ, ad­judged in re­la­tion to oth­er oblig­ors in the Caribbean is good.”

The cred­it rat­ing agency con­tin­ued, “The Ja­maica na­tion­al scale lo­cal cur­ren­cy rat­ing in­di­cates that the lev­el of cred­it­wor­thi­ness of SGJ, ad­judged in re­la­tion to oth­er lo­cal cur­ren­cy debt oblig­ors in Ja­maica is the high­est. Cari­CRIS has al­so as­signed a sta­ble out­look on the rat­ings. The sta­ble out­look is pred­i­cat­ed on the high like­li­hood of the Group main­tain­ing prof­itable op­er­a­tions, al­beit at a low­er lev­el, over the next 12 to 15 months. This is un­der­pinned by the SGJ’s lead­ing mar­ket po­si­tion and con­tin­ued busi­ness en­hance­ment and growth ini­tia­tives, notwith­stand­ing high­er ex­pens­es to sup­port the ex­e­cu­tion of these ac­tiv­i­ties. Cari­CRIS al­so ex­pects the Group to com­fort­ably meet its debt oblig­a­tions over the next 12 to 15 months and main­tain ad­e­quate cap­i­tal­i­sa­tion buffers.”

Cari­CRIS ex­plained that SGJ’s rat­ings re­flect the Group’s lead­ing mar­ket po­si­tions and strong brand eq­ui­ty, which the agency is ex­pec­tant will con­tin­ue to sup­port its con­sis­tent and healthy fi­nan­cial per­for­mance with strong prof­itabil­i­ty growth re­port­ed in 2023.

SGJ’s pres­i­dent and CEO is Chris Za­c­ca.