Philippine Rating Services Corporation (PhilRatings) has assigned Global Dominion Financing Inc. (GDFI) an issuer credit rating of PRS A plus (corp.), with a stable outlook.
GDFI offers unsecured and secured credit facilities that cater to the financial needs of businesses, particularly small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and individuals, without engaging in quasi-banking (QB) functions.
The Company mainly provides second hand car and truck financing and refinancing, through its 78 branches nationwide.
GDFI aims to significantly expand its loan portfolio by building up its sales targets, recruiting additional loan consultants, and growing the number of its accredited dealers in order to capture additional market share.
An Issuer Credit Rating is a measure of the general creditworthiness of a company over a one-year period and a PRS A rating means it has an above average capacity to meet its financial commitments relative to that of other Philippine corporates.
The company, however, is somewhat susceptible to adverse changes in circumstances and economic conditions than higher-rated corporates. The plus further qualifies the assigned rating.
A stable outlook means the rating is likely to remain unchanged in the next 12 months.
In assigning the rating and its outlook, PhilRatings said it considered the commitment exhibited by GDFI’s shareholders, the company’s experienced management team, and its strong income generation on account of aggressive loan book growth.
These rating strengths are counterbalanced by the significant challenges faced by GDFI’s target market due to the economic uncertainty and immediate adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the high share of the company’s standard grade and substandard grade loans in relation to its loan portfolio.
According to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), more than half of the country’s micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) had to stop their operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
About 52.66 percent of MSMEs fully stopped or closed their operations due to the health crisis, as of April 29, 2020. Some 12.55 percent of MSMEs had limited operations, while those who managed to continue their operations stood at 34.79 percent.
PhilRatings notes that, as of end-March 2022, SMEs accounted for 61.0 percent of the Company’s total loan portfolio.