This in turn affects the rating process, as a credit rating is Fitch’s opinion about the future ability of a company to generate free cash flow to repay its debts.
"Notably, Australia and Sri Lanka receive the highest risk score under the incumbent and second-entrant classifications, whereas Malaysia and Hong Kong (second-entrant) are assessed as having the lowest regulatory risk," the report said.
The incumbent operators typically score lower (implying a lower risk) than the corresponding second-entrants for each market, largely due to state ownership or a legacy regulatory bias which has resulted in a more favourable environment for the incumbents.
In the risk scores on a combined basis, when averaging the separate incumbent and second-entrant risk scores, "Sri Lanka markedly stands out as the market with the highest