Fitch Ratings Affirms Six Classes of TCW High Income Partners, Ltd.Business Editors NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 21, 2003 Fitch Ratings Fitch Ratings An international rating agency for financial institutions, insurance companies, and corporate, sovereign, and municipal debt. Fitch Ratings has headquarters in New York and London and is wholly owned by FIMALAC of Paris. affirms six classes of notes issued by TCW TCW Total Carat Weight TCW Temporal Cold War (Star Trek Enterprise) TCW Troop Carrier Wing TCW Turnbuckle Championship Wrestling TCW Tasty Coma Wife (Scrubs episode) High Income Partners, Ltd. (TCW HIP) These affirmations are the result of Fitch's annual review process. The following rating actions are effective immediately: -- $202,000,000 Class I Senior Notes Affirmed at 'AAA'; -- $25,000,000 Class II-A Senior Notes Affirmed at 'AA-'; -- $31,000,000 Class II-B Senior Notes Affirmed at 'AA-'; -- $10,000,000 Class III-A Mezzanine mez·za·nine n. 1. A partial story between two main stories of a building. 2. The lowest balcony in a theater or the first few rows of that balcony. Notes Affirmed at 'BBB'; -- $23,000,000 Class III-B Mezzanine Notes Affirmed at 'BBB'; -- $18,000,000 Class IV-Mezzanine Notes Affirmed at 'BB-'. TCW HIP is a collateralized bond obligation Collateralized Bond Obligation (CBO) Investment-grade bonds backed by a collection of junk bonds with different levels of risk, called tiers, that are determined by the quality of junk bond involved. (CBO CBO See: Collateralized Bond Obligation. ) managed by TCW Asset Management Company, (TCW). The CBO was issued August 16, 2001 and is primarily comprised of high yield bonds. Fitch reviewed the portfolio performance of TCW HIP and discussed the current state of the portfolio with the asset manager and their management strategy going forward. The TCW HIP portfolio has experienced some deterioration in par since its inception with a reduction in its overcollateralization levels of approximately 3%. The transaction, however, has a significant amount of excess spread after distributing scheduled interest payments to noteholders thereby providing credit enhancement Credit Enhancement A method whereby a company attempts to improve its debt or credit worthiness. Notes: Credit enhancements take many different forms. An example of a credit enhancement would be conversion rights added on to a debt instrument in order to lower the issuing to the structure. Fitch conducted cash flow modeling under various default and interest rate scenarios to measure the breakeven breakeven 1. The level of output or sales necessary to cover fixed expenses. Companies in industries that have high fixed costs and, consequently, high breakevens, such as automobile and steel manufacturing, are likely to exhibit large fluctuations default rates. These breakevens were compared to the minimum cumulative default rates required for the rated liabilities over the transaction's life. As a result of this analysis, Fitch determined that the original ratings assigned to the notes still reflect the current risk to noteholders. Fitch will continue to monitor and review this transaction for future rating adjustments. Additional deal information and historical data are available on the Fitch web site at www.fitchratings.com. |
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