MARC Ratings today published its 2025 Annual Corporate Default and Ratings Transition Study, which tracks corporate ratings assigned by the rating agency since its inception in 1996 through 2025.

In 2025, MARC Ratings’ corporate portfolio maintained its record of zero defaults, marking the third consecutive year without any defaults. This reflects MARC Ratings’ portfolio strength, supported by sound issuer-level fundamentals, resilient macroeconomic conditions, and a supportive policy rate environment. These factors have limited refinancing risks and strengthened issuers’ capacity to withstand any increase in economic uncertainties.

Consistent with this strong performance, the rating agency has continued to demonstrate proficiency in predicting defaults and effectively ranking credit risk through its ratings. For the 1998–2025 period, MARC Ratings’ long-term ratings accuracy ratio improved to 76.6% (1998–2024 period: 75.6%), suggesting enhanced capability in assessing relative default risk. Overall, MARC Ratings’ five-year ratings accuracy ratio rose marginally to 99.3% (2021–2025) from 99.1% (2020–2024).

Meanwhile, rating migration within MARC Ratings’ corporate portfolio remained minimal in 2025 compared to the preceding year, with only three upgrades and no downgrades or defaults. This resulted in a higher ratings stability rate of 97.0%, from 89.8% in 2024. The dominance of high-grade issuers helped maintain stability, lifting the long-term average ratings stability rate slightly to 88.3% (2000–2025) from 87.9% (2000–2024). This positive trend in credit quality was also reflected in the downgrade-to-upgrade ratio, which declined to 0.0x in 2025 from 1.5x in 2024, when six downgrades and four upgrades were recorded.

Moving forward, MARC Ratings anticipates stable ratings trajectories for corporates in its portfolio, supported by sustained economic growth, stable monetary conditions, and the vast majority of highly rated bonds within the rating agency’s cohort of issuers.