DBRS Reinstates Rating on New Brunswick (F-M) Project Company’s Highway Bonds at A (high)

DBRS has today reinstated and confirmed the rating on the Highway Bonds of New Brunswick (F-M) Project Company Inc. (the Company) at A (high) with a Stable trend.

The rating on the Highway Bonds is a flow-through of the long-term rating of the Province of New Brunswick (the Province), which was confirmed on June 25, 2009, as the Highway Bonds are serviced by an absolute assignment of a portion of the sublease payments from the New Brunswick Highway Corporation (NBHC), a provincial Crown corporation. These payments are not traffic-dependent and are funded by a statutorily supported appropriation from the Province’s Consolidated Revenue Fund. While there is no explicit provincial guarantee, default risk due to NBHC not meeting its sublease commitments is extremely low based on its status as an agent of the Crown, its credibility to honour its commitments and the Province’s fiscal capacity.

Notes:
The applicable methodology is Rating Canadian Public-Private Partnerships, which can be found on our website under Methodologies.

This is a Public Finance rating.