{"id":23924,"date":"2021-10-26T12:04:37","date_gmt":"2021-10-26T15:04:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=23924"},"modified":"2026-04-23T14:26:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T17:26:23","slug":"moodys-to-review-sjm-holdings-rating-after-refinancing-delay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/moodys-to-review-sjm-holdings-rating-after-refinancing-delay","title":{"rendered":"Moody&#8217;s to review SJM Holdings&#8217; rating after refinancing delay"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Moody&#8217;s Investors Service has announced it will review SJM Holdings&#8217; rating for a downgrade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Macau.-\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/sjm-holdings-expects-casino-licence-renewal-for-ten-years\">SJM Holdings Limited<\/a>\u00a0has been placed on review for downgrade by Moody&#8217;s Investors Servic<strong>e mainly due to a delay in refinancing its existing bank loans<\/strong>, which will mature at the end of February 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Moody&#8217;s will review SJM Holdings Limited&#8217;s Ba1 corporate family rating (CFR) and the Ba2 backed senior unsecured rating on the bond issued by Champion Path Holdings Limited and guaranteed by SJM Holdings Limited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Sean Hwang, Moody&#8217;s assistant vice president and analyst<\/strong>, said: &#8220;While SJM&#8217;s solid credit quality and long-standing banking relationships support its ability to raise necessary funds, its funding plan is subject to certain regulatory processes and capital market uncertainties.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/sjm-sells-us1bn-in-notes-to-cancel-grand-lisboa-loans\">SJM Holdings<\/a>\u00a0started to refinance the secured bank financing due in February 2022 in early 2021.\u00a0<strong>In the first half of the year, it raised HK$9.3bn (US$1.2 bn) in unsecured bonds\u00a0<\/strong>and reduced the balance of existing financing from HK$19bn at the end of 2020 to HK$9bn at the end of June 2021.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>SJM is seeking to refinance the remaining balance through new syndicated bank financing. However, Moody&#8217;s believes the implementation of such facilities is subject to certain regulatory procedures, which can sometimes be unpredictable.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Further delays would force SJM to switch to other financing channels, such as bond issuance, which has a limited buffer for the upcoming maturity date.\u00a0This situation could expose SJM to uncertain capital market conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, Moody&#8217;s believes that<strong> &#8220;SJM&#8217;s established track record of gaming operations and quality assets in Macau&#8221;<\/strong>,&nbsp;as well as its long-term banking relationship, will help to obtain sufficient bank financing or bond income for refinancing.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>If SJM fails to make sufficient progress on the maturity of bank loans<\/strong>&nbsp;in the next three months or so, Moody&#8217;s will downgrade its rating, possibly by multiple ratings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">SJM Holdings posts US$188.5m net loss for H1<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/sjm-holdings-posts-us188-5m-net-loss-for-h1\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">SJM Holdings<\/a><strong>&nbsp;<\/strong>has reported that&nbsp;<strong>revenue in the first six months<\/strong>&nbsp;of the year was&nbsp;<strong>up 19 per cent&nbsp;<\/strong>year-on-year to HKD5.22bn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Adjusted EBITDA<\/strong>&nbsp;came in at HKD510m in the second quarter with a negative margin of 9.8 per cent, compared with<strong>&nbsp;a negative 22.5 per cent from the previous year period<\/strong>,<strong>&nbsp;<\/strong>while net losses reached HKD1.47bn (US$ 188.5m).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The company said that despite the Covid-19 pandemic, \u201c<strong>certain results showed improvement&nbsp;<\/strong>in comparison with the first half of 2020.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Net gaming revenue was up 18.8 per cent year-on-year<\/strong>&nbsp;to HKD5.08bn while mass-market table GGR was up 33.2 per cent to HKD4.39bn.&nbsp;<strong>VIP gross revenue<\/strong>&nbsp;for the first half stood at HKD855.6m, down 37.5 per cent, while revenue from slot machines was up 12.7 per cent year-on-year to HKD264.6m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Moody&#8217;s Investors Service has announced it will review SJM Holdings&#8217; rating for a downgrade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":17520,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Moody's Investors Service has placed SJM Holdings on review for a potential downgrade due to delays in refinancing its maturing bank loans, citing regulatory processes and capital market uncertainties. Despite SJM's efforts to secure new syndicated bank financing and its established gaming operations in Macau, a failure to progress within three months could lead to a multi-notch downgrade. The company reported a US$188.5m net loss for H1, though NGR and mass-market GGR showed year-on-year improvements.","focusai_entities":"SJM Holdings Limited, Moody\u2019s Investors Service, Champion Path Holdings Limited, Sean Hwang","focusai_location":"Macau","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (0.85), compliance_legal (0.8), operator_casino (0.9), investor_analyst (0.95), supplier_vendor (0.75), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"SJM Refinancing Impact","query":"What specific regulatory processes are impeding SJM Holdings' syndicated bank financing, and what are the broader implications for other Macau concessionaires seeking capital market access?"},{"label":"Downgrade Scenario Analysis","query":"If Moody's downgrades SJM Holdings by multiple notches, what would be the immediate and long-term impact on its cost of capital, future investment capacity, and competitive positioning within the Macau gaming vertical?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16338,163],"tags":[23108],"class_list":["post-23924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-asia-news","category-finance-news","tag-sjm-holdings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23924"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23935,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23924\/revisions\/23935"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}