Just days af­ter be­ing down­grad­ed by Stan­dard & Poor's (S&P) cred­it rat­ing agency, Trinidad Ce­ment Lim­it­ed has been giv­en the same treat­ment by Fitch Rat­ings.Yes­ter­day Fitch's pri­ma­ry an­a­lyst Phillip Wrenn said in a state­ment that ce­ment com­pa­ny's for­eign and lo­cal cur­ren­cy is­suer de­fault rat­ings (IDRs) had dropped to 'D' from 'B-'.

"This down­grade to 'D' fol­lows the an­nounce­ment by TCL's Board of Di­rec­tors on Sep­tem­ber 29, 2014 of a 'stand­still' on all pay­ments due un­der ex­ist­ing re­struc­tured loan agree­ments. As a re­sult, TCL missed its debt ser­vice pay­ments due on Sep­tem­ber 30, 2014. These ma­tu­ri­ties are not sub­ject to a grace pe­ri­od."He said Fitch con­sid­ers the missed debt pay­ment an event of de­fault.

The an­a­lyst not­ed that TCL's board of di­rec­tors had an­nounced a new re­struc­tur­ing plan due to be sub­mit­ted by Oc­to­ber 31.