Moody's Affirms Reliance Industries' Baa2 Ratings, Outlook Stable
The stable outlook also reflects the company's earnings to grow across most of its business segments.
Moody's Investors Service affirmed Reliance Industries Ltd.'s 'Baa2' domestic long-term issuer rating and foreign currency senior unsecured rating.
The rating agency has also maintained a stable outlook on all its other ratings, according to a note on Wednesday.
The affirmation of RIL's 'Baa2' ratings reflects the company's large-scale and leading market position across its diverse businesses and management's strong execution track record, according to Sweta Patodia, an analyst at Moody's.
The stable outlook also reflects the company's ability to grow earnings across most of its business segments.
A 'Baa' rating by Moody's is defined as a rating that is subject to moderate credit risk and may possess speculative characteristics.
Moody's expects RIL's Ebitda to grow by around 14% to Rs 1.7 trillion in the current financial year due to strong growth in its consumer businesses as well as its upstream oil and gas segment.
"The ratings affirmation also reflects our expectation that continued earnings growth will keep RIL's credit metrics strongly positioned for its current ratings despite high ongoing capital spending," Patodia said.
Moody's expects the subscriber base for Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. to steadily grow over the next 12–18 months on the back of the rollout of 5G services, the ramp-up of home broadband services and the launch of the Jio Bharat phone.
Earnings from the upstream oil and gas segment will grow strongly in the fiscal due to higher production volumes and strong gas prices, Moody's said.
It expects RIL to cut its planned capital spending to adhere to its stated financial policy of maintaining net debt.
The company's liquidity is supported by its long-standing banking relationships and its strong access to domestic and international capital markets, it said.
Moody's said the ratings could be upgraded only if the sovereign rating is upgraded because the company's ratings are capped at one notch above the sovereign.
