The Dexia group will no longer have any stake in Dexia Municipal Agency under a revised disposal plan announced yesterday (Thursday), a move that analysts said should be positive for the obligations foncières, with the removal of guarantees outweighed by effective state ownership.

Previously, Dexia Crédit Local would have been a shareholder in a new credit institution (known as NEC) that will own Dexia Municipal Agency. Under the new plan, Dexia CL will no longer have a stake in NEC, which will be owned by two state entities, Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations and La Banque Postale.

“With this planned change in ownership DexiaMA would be completely taken out of Dexia Group,” said Florian Eichert, senior covered bond analyst at Crédit Agricole, “which is positive in our view (DCL would have been the weakest link in the ownership structure).”

Guarantees that were to be granted by the Dexia group to Dexia MA will no longer be provided, but analysts said that this will be outweighed by the stronger state support for the covered bond issuer.

“In our opinion, the removal of the guarantees is slightly credit negative (no substitute is mentioned in the statement) but will affectively be replaced by an implicit guarantee through the owners,” said RBS analysts.

“For us, the more crucial point is that DexMA’s liquidity flow to finance its over-collateralisation is ensured,” they added. “In the plan as of March this year, the liquidity currently provided by DCL would be replaced by Eu12.5bn liquidity lines provided by CDC. [Thursday’s] statement did not mention any changes to the liquidity structure.”

The planned changes to the disposal of Dexia MA are subject to shareholder and European Commission approval.