ANALISI Brasile e Petrobas
Emerging market bonds
Petrobras: Homeless | 23 September 2015
Chief Investment Office WM
Donald McLauchlan, analyst
• Petrobras was badly hit by the ratings carnage that followed
S&P's downgrade of Brazil to speculative grade (high yield) on 9
September.
• Since Petrobras was already rated high yield by Moody's, a second
speculative grade rating, this time by S&P, means that around USD
43bn, EUR 7bn, and GBP 1.8bn in bonds are no longer eligible
for investment grade indices. Cross-over investment grade money
is mostly gone, and we find it unlikely that high yield portfolio
managers will show up anytime soon.
• The ongoing political crisis has dented sentiment toward Brazilian
assets, and the sovereign has become a burden to corporate
valuations, including Petrobras's. Unfortunately, based on news
flow, resolution may still be many weeks away.
• Meanwhile, we still see default risk as low, and prefer low USDpriced
bonds in the short-to-intermediate portion of the Petrobras
curve. Petrobras registers its USD-denominated bonds with the US
SEC.
Petrobras bonds searching for a home...
Petrobras suffered a major blow in the ratings carnage that followed S&P's
downgrade of Brazil to BB+. Since Petrobras was already rated high yield
by Moody's, a second speculative grade rating means that over USD 53bn
in USD-, EUR-, and GBP-denominated bonds are no longer eligible for
investment grade indices. As a result of this unfortunate situation, crossover
investment grade money is mostly gone, and we find it unlikely that
high yield portfolio managers will show up anytime soon.
Petrobras may have become the largest high yield issuer in the world, but
the high yield market is more US-centric than investment grade, and very
few high yield indices make room for emerging market credits. We look
at Petrobras as a proxy to Brazilian sovereign risk, and find a spread-tosovereign
of over 500bps in the mid-section of the yield curve as appealing,
but high yield investors may think differently. "Energy" has almost become
a bad word in high yield, and dedicated high yield investors may find more
attractive valuations than Petrobras in their core market. In addition, their
target issuers operate in a more stable environment as opposed to Brazil's
unnerving political crisis that is weighing on everything Brazilian.
Table 1: Petrobras – Credit ratings
Moody's S&P Fitch
Outlook STABLE NEGATIVE NEGATIVE
Senior Unsecured Ba2 BB BBBSource:
Bloomberg, as of 22 September 2015
Table 2: Petrobras – Financial data
LTMs as of: 12/2012 12/2013 12/2014 06/2015
Short-term debt (USDmn) 7,497 8,017 11,884 14,393
Long-term debt (USDmn) 88,570 106,308 120,274 119,543
Total debt (USDmn) 96,067 114,325 132,158 133,936
Cash (USDmn) 23,732 19,746 25,957 29,536
Net debt (USDmn) 72,335 94,579 106,201 104,400
Net revenues (USDmn) 144,103 141,462 143,657 124,241
EBITDA (USDmn) 27,632 29,426 24,966 25,562
Interest expense (USDmn) 5,152 5,491 6,734 6,764
EBITDA margin (%) 19.2 20.8 17.4 20.6
EBITDA/Interest (x) 5.4 5.4 3.7 3.8
Debt/EBITDA (x) 3.5 3.9 5.3 5.2
Net debt/EBITDA (x) 2.6 3.2 4.3 4.1
Source: Company reports, as of 22 September 2015
This report has been prepared by UBS Financial Services Inc. (UBS FS). Please see important disclaimers and disclosures at the end of the document.
... but credit metrics may stabilize soon
Despite very negative news flow, credit metrics may soon find a floor. Production
keeps growing, maybe not at a pace desired by many, but output is
up. In August, Petrobras's domestic production of oil and natural gas hit a
new all-time record of 2.69 million of barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/
d), up 3.1% month-over-month, 4.5% year-over-year, and 0.8% above the
prior record of 2.86 million boe/d in December 2014. Leverage (total debt
divided by 12-month-trailing EBITDA) as of 30 June came in at 5.2x, up
from 4.7x in March, but down from 5.3x in December 2014, and below
the recent peak of 5.7x in September 2014. Granted, leverage of over 5x is
high and incompatible with investment grade ratings, but Petrobras already
lost that status. The urgency of rapidly lowering the ratio is gone, and 5x
is sustainable over the foreseeable future, in our view.
Aside from the company's liquidity position, investments, funding needs,
and news about planned divestments, we believe investors will pay close
attention to the performance of the company's refining, transportation,
and marketing (RTM) when Petrobras releases 3Q15 figures. RTM is the unit
that was burdened with about USD 10bn in subsidies per year from 2011
through 2014. We note that RTM's year-to-date EBITDA through June 2015
came in at USD 7.1bn, up from negative USD 4.4bn during the same period
in 2014. Based on information from our colleagues in UBS Investment Bank,
we estimate that Petrobras sold gasoline and diesel at an aggregate 6%
premium in 2Q15. We are aware that a close to 12% depreciation in the
Brazilian real July-to-date has eroded that premium, but a close to 22%
decline in average crude oil prices over that same period of time should
offset the currency-driven prejudice. Based on Petrobras's 2014 earnings
release, we estimate that RTM posted about USD 3bn in negative EBITDA
in 3Q14. We expect 3Q15 RTM EBITDA to come in within a positive range
of between USD 3bn and USD 3.5bn in 3Q15.
Risk factors
Short-term risks at Petrobras include escalation of the political turmoil, a
weaker BRL, and funding challenges as a consequence of the loss of its
investment grade status. In the medium-to-long term, Petrobras will have
to cope with business-plan-related execution risks, a high debt burden, and
possible negative free cash flow generation over the next few years. Depreciation
of the BRL beyond our expectation could worsen this situation. We
also remain concerned about current pre-salt-layer concession rules that
force Petrobras to be involved in every single field, as well as with minimum
national content provisions.
Our bottom line
We still see default risk as low, and prefer low USD-priced bonds in
the short-to-intermediate portion of the Petrobras curve. Investors with a
greater risk appetite may want to consider longer dated Petrobras bonds
that are trading at steeper discounts to par value.
Petrobras registers its bonds with the US Securities and Exchange Commission
(SEC).
Emerging market bonds