Standard&Poor's lowered its long-term sovereign rating on Japan to 'AA-' on Jan. 27. Following the downgrade, we affirmed the ratings on six Japanese corporations with 'AA' long-term issuer credit ratings and two corporations with ratings incorporating the likelihood of ongoing and extraordinary support from Japan's government. We base the rating affirmation on the six 'AA'-rated corporations on our view that these companies are highly likely to maintain their capacity to service their debts even under the stressed scenario of a Japanese government default. We affirmed the ratings on two other companies--INPEX Corp. and Narita International Airport Corp.--because we maintained our assessment that they are highly likely to receive ongoing and extraordinary government support. TOKYO (Standard&Poor's) Jan.
