Fitch Downgrades Afreximbank, Withdraws Ratings
Fitch Ratings has downgraded African Export-Import Bank’s (Afreximbank) Long-Term Issuer Default Rating (IDR) to ‘BB+’ from ‘BBB-‘ with an outlook accorded as stable.
The global ratings agency also downgraded Afreximbank’s Short-Term IDR to ‘B’ from ‘F3’ and the long-term ratings on the bank’s global medium-term note programme and debt issuance to ‘BB+’ from ‘BBB-‘.
“The downgrade reflects our revision of Afreximbank’s policy importance risk to ‘medium’ from ‘low’ following the announcement of an agreement on Ghana’s debt to Afreximbank in the context of Ghana’s broader restructuring.
“This has led us to revise our assessment of Afreximbank’s business profile to ‘high risk’ from ‘medium risk’, which resulted in an overall business environment notching of -3 versus -2 previously”.
Meanwhile, Fitch said it has chosen to withdraw the ratings for commercial reasons and will no longer provide ratings or analytical coverage for the bank.
Afreximbank and Ghana announced in December 2025 that they had reached an agreement in principle with respect to Afreximbank’s USD750 million sovereign loan to Ghana.
The IMF stated that the deal is in line with the comparability of treatment under Ghana’s official creditor committee. Fitch analysts view this as evidence that Afreximbank did not benefit from its preferred creditor status (PCS).
“While we had not previously given any uplift in our solvency assessment for PCS, the de facto preferential treatment in a broader sense that Afreximbank, along with most other multilateral development banks, benefits from was previously factored into our assessment of the bank’s policy importance. The bank’s inclusion in Ghana’s restructuring underlines its weakening policy importance, in our view”.
Fitch said its latest assessment of Afreximbank’s ‘high’ business profile risk underpins the ‘high risk’ quality of governance assessment, and ‘high’ strategy risk.
The ‘high risk’ business environment assessment reflects the bank’s exposure to a ‘high risk’ operating environment with weak credit quality, low income per capita, and high political risk in the countries of operation.
Fitch said Afreximbank ratings are driven by the bank’s Standalone Credit Profile (SCP) of ‘bb+’, reflecting the lower of the solvency (bbb+) and liquidity (a) assessments and its ‘high risk’ business environment. It added that the solvency assessment balances the bank’s ‘strong’ capitalisation and ‘moderate’ risk profile.
According to Fitch, Afreximbank’s ‘bbb+’ solvency assessment reflects both ‘strong’ capitalisation and ‘moderate’ solvency risks.
“Our assessment of capitalisation is underpinned by a ‘moderate’ usable capital to risk-weighted assets (21% at end-2024) ratio, a ‘strong’ equity to assets and guarantees ratio (19%) and ‘excellent’ internal capital generation.
“The ‘moderate’ solvency risks assessment reflects ‘high’ credit risk, ‘weak’ risk management policies, ‘low’ concentration risk and ‘very low’ equity risk”.
Afreximbank’s ‘a’ liquidity assessment reflects the ‘strong’ quality of treasury assets, measured by the share of treasury assets rated ‘AA-‘, and a ‘moderate’ liquidity buffer.
Fitch said the bank’s liquidity profile is enhanced by its access to capital markets and diversified funding sources, including credit lines totaling USD2.1 billion, of which USD0.6 billion was committed in 2024, and collateral deposits. The short duration of the loan portfolio also contains liquidity needs.
Fitch assesses shareholders’ capacity to support Afreximbank at ‘bb-‘, based on the average rating of key shareholders (ARKS) accounting for more than 50% of the bank’s capital.
The sovereign upgrades of Egypt and Nigeria, Afreximbank’s two largest shareholders, in April 2025 improved the ARKS to ‘B+’ from ‘B’. Credit risk mitigants on callable capital (covering 40% of USD4.3 billion) enhance the support capacity by one notch to ‘bb-‘.
Fitch said the support assessment also reflects the ‘strong’ propensity of shareholders to support the bank, which has been consistently demonstrated by ongoing capital injections and dividend reinvestments. Dangote Fertilizer Strengthens Governance Ahead of Market Debut
