Item 2. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations
RESULTS OF OPERATIONS (continued)
When an insured obligation refunds, we accelerate to expense any remaining deferred acquisition costs associated with the policy covering the refunded insured obligation. We did not defer a material amount of policy acquisition costs during 2023 or 2022 as we did not write any new insurance business in those years.
INSURED PORTFOLIO EXPOSURE Financial guarantee insurance companies use a variety of approaches to assess the underlying credit risk profile of their insured portfolios. National uses both an internally developed credit rating system as well as third-party rating sources in the analysis of credit quality measures of its insured portfolio. In evaluating credit risk, we obtain, when available, the underlying rating(s) of the insured obligation before the benefit of National’s insurance policy from nationally recognized rating agencies, Moody’s Investor Services (“Moody’s”) and Standard & Poor’s Financial Services LLC (“S&P”). Other companies within the financial guarantee industry may report credit quality information based upon internal ratings that would not be comparable to our presentation. We maintain internal ratings on our entire portfolio, and our ratings may be higher or lower than the underlying ratings assigned by Moody’s or S&P.
The following table presents the credit quality distribution of National’s U.S. public finance outstanding gross par insured as of June 30, 2023 and December 31, 2022. Capital appreciation bonds (“CABs”) are reported at the par amount at the time of issuance of the insurance policy. All ratings are as of the period presented and represent S&P underlying ratings, where available. If transactions are not rated by S&P, a Moody’s equivalent rating is used. If transactions are not rated by either S&P or Moody’s, an internal equivalent rating is used.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | Gross Par Outstanding |
In millions | | June 30, 2023 | | December 31, 2022 |
Rating | | Amount | | % | | Amount | | % |
AAA | | $ | 1,376 | | | | 4.5% | | | $ | 1,433 | | | | 4.5% | |
AA | | | 12,959 | | | | 42.5% | | | | 13,448 | | | | 42.5% | |
A | | | 11,182 | | | | 36.7% | | | | 9,672 | | | | 30.5% | |
BBB | | | 3,004 | | | | 9.9% | | | | 5,055 | | | | 16.0% | |
Below investment grade | | | 1,957 | | | | 6.4% | | | | 2,044 | | | | 6.5% | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Total | | $ | 30,478 | | | | 100.0% | | | $ | 31,652 | | | | 100.0% | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
U.S. Public Finance Insurance Puerto Rico Exposures
On May 3, 2017, the Oversight Board certified and filed a petition under Title III of the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (“PROMESA”) for Puerto Rico with the District Court of Puerto Rico thereby commencing a bankruptcy-like case for the Commonwealth General Obligation (“GO”). Under separate petitions, the Oversight Board subsequently commenced Title III proceedings for the Puerto Rico Sales Tax Financing Corporation (“COFINA”), the Puerto Rico Highways and Transportation Authority (“PRHTA”), PREPA and the Public Buildings Authority (“PBA”) on May 5, 2017, May 21, 2017, July 2, 2017 and September 27, 2019, respectively. On February 4, 2019, the District of Puerto Rico entered the order confirming the Third Amended Title III Plan of Adjustment for COFINA. The Title III cases for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico GO and PBA were confirmed on January 18, 2022, and became effective on March 15, 2022. The confirmation hearing for the PRHTA Title III case was completed on August 17, 2022, and the confirmation order was entered on October 12, 2022, which became effective on December 6, 2022.
As a result of prior defaults, various stays and the Title III cases, Puerto Rico failed to make certain scheduled debt service payments for National insured bonds. As a consequence, National has paid gross claims in the aggregate amount of $2.9 billion relating to GO bonds, PBA bonds, PREPA bonds and PRHTA bonds through June 30, 2023, inclusive of the commutation payment and the additional payment in the amount of $66 million in 2019 related to COFINA and the GO and HTA acceleration and commutation payments of $277 million and $556 million, respectively, in 2022.
Status of Puerto Rico’s Fiscal Plans
The Oversight Board certified fiscal plans for PREPA, University of Puerto Rico (the “University”) and PRHTA on June 28, 2022, May 27, 2022 and October 14, 2022, respectively. The Oversight Board also certified the fiscal year 2023 budgets for Commonwealth, PREPA, the University and PRHTA on June 30, 2022. On June 23, 2023, the Oversight Board filed a fiscal plan for PREPA for FY2023, which provided for approximately $2.4 billion of distributions to PREPA bondholders. The University is not a debtor in Title III and continues to be current on its debt service payment. However, the University is subject to a standstill agreement with its senior bondholders, which has been extended to November 30, 2023. National is not a party to the standstill agreement. As of June 30, 2023, National had $78 million of debt service outstanding related to the University.
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