OREANDA-NEWS. July 06, 2015. Fitch Ratings has affirmed Albion Capital Corporation S.A.'s (Albion) asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) Short-term Rating at 'F1sf' following a review of the programme.

KEY RATING DRIVERS
Albion's CP is fully supported by The Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd. (BTMU, A/Stable/F1), which acts as the programme's sponsor and main liquidity provider. BTMU's commitment under the programme liquidity agreement ensures the full and timely repayment of all maturing CP notes if Albion has insufficient funds on any CP maturity date. The CP rating is therefore linked to BTMU's Short-term rating of 'F1'.

The affirmation follows a discussion with BTMU's management and takes into consideration the conduit's performance, CP issuance and portfolio composition over the past 12 months.

The total portfolio consists of 15 transactions, one more than at the time of the previous annual review. The portfolio predominantly comprises auto finance receivables and trade receivables at 62% and 21%, respectively. Geographic distribution of the portfolio is somewhat weighted towards the UK, at 49%, compared with 33% at the time of the previous review. The exposure to Germany is largely unchanged at 25%.

The programme was restructured in July 2013 to add a US co-issuer to enhance Albion's USCP issuance capacity and the programme size was increased to USD10bn from USD2bn. Fitch affirmed the rating following these amendments (see "Fitch Affirms Albion's ABCP at 'F1sf'", dated 30 July 2013 at www.fitchratings.com).

Albion is a fully supported, multi-seller ABCP programme structured to issue US and euro CP in various currencies to fund the purchase of diverse asset types up to a maximum programme limit of USD10bn. Following the restructuring Albion re-started issuing CP and currently has USD2.7bn of CP outstanding.

RATING SENSITIVITIES
If BTMU's Short-term rating was downgraded or upgraded, this would result in a downgrade or upgrade of Albion's CP.

DATA ADEQUACY
Fitch has checked the consistency and plausibility of the information it has received about the performance of the Albion programme. There were no findings that were material to this analysis. Fitch has not reviewed the results of any third party assessment of the asset portfolio information or conducted a review of origination files as part of its ongoing monitoring.

Overall, Fitch's assessment of the information relied upon for the agency's rating analysis according to its applicable rating methodologies indicates that it is adequately reliable.