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GSA have today received confirmation from Moody's of a downgrade in its credit rating of the Group from A3 Negative to Baa1 Stable.

Their press release is available via their usual channels and a full ratings opinion will follow in the coming days.

Whilst Moody's have acknowledged the proactive management of the risks the Group faces; their Ratings Committee highlighted near-term covenant headroom, debt levels and the delivery risk in the forward plan around the acceleration of asset disposals as key areas of comparative weakness. 

Clearly, we are disappointed with this outcome given the progress that has been made in the last two years to address risk in the Group and stabilise our position.  We remain focused on continuing to improve the position of the Group and committed to our forward plan which demonstrates a clear trajectory towards achieving an improved rating in the short to medium term.

We fully recognise the significance of this decision and as valued stakeholders in our business, we are arranging an investor update in early March where we will discuss the action taken and share our plans for the coming years - details of which will follow.

In addition, we wanted to take this opportunity to let you that James Tarrant, our Director of Corporate Finance & Treasury will be leaving GSA in mid-March to take up a new role as a Director at Savills Financial Consultants.

Following James' departure, Jo Makinson, our Chief Finance Officer will be the primary point of contact for investors.  Our investors email address remains unchanged as the primary method to contact us for any investor queries.