AAA Rating
AAA*, or Triple-A, is the highest rating assigned by credit rating agencies to companies and their financial obligations. Moody’s has a slight variation from the other agencies, where they use 'Aaa' as the designation for their highest rating. Each credit agency has a slightly different definition, as shown in the extracts below from the three main rating agencies:
Standard & Poor’s
“An obligation rated 'AAA' has the highest rating assigned by S&P Global Ratings. The obligor's capacity to meet its financial commitments on the obligation is extremely strong.”
Moody’s
“Obligations rated Aaa are judged to be of the highest quality, subject to the lowest level of credit risk”.
Fitch
“AAA’ ratings denote the lowest expectation of default risk. They are assigned only in cases of exceptionally strong capacity for payment of financial commitments. This capacity is highly unlikely to be adversely affected by foreseeable events.