African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) has secured a BBB+ investment-grade rating from S&P Global Ratings, three notches above Fitch Ratings’ earlier BB+ assessment, highlighting a sharp divergence in how major agencies view the pan-African lender.
The rating underscores Afreximbank’s growing role in financing trade, industrialisation and economic development across Africa.
The latest assessment also comes five months after Fitch downgraded the Cairo-based lender’s Long-Term Issuer Default Rating to BB+ from BBB- and cut its short-term rating to B from F3. Fitch subsequently withdrew its ratings in January after Afreximbank terminated its rating mandate with the agency.
At the time, the global agency said the downgrade reflected a reassessment of the bank’s policy importance following Ghana’s debt restructuring agreement with Afreximbank as part of the country’s broader sovereign debt workout.
A BB+ rating is considered non-investment grade, or “junk” status, while S&P’s BBB+ rating places the bank firmly within investment-grade territory.
