On April 3, 2017, we lowered our long-term foreign currency sovereign credit rating on the Republic of South Africa to 'BB+' from 'BBB-' and maintained our negative outlook. In our view, the sovereign downgrade reflects increased risks to South Africa-based MTN Group, including the potential impact of weaker economic growth on its strategy. We are therefore revising our outlook on MTN to negative from stable and affirming our 'BB+' corporate credit and senior unsecured debt ratings. The negative outlook reflects the possibility that we could downgrade MTN over the next year if the rating on South Africa falls further, reflecting weaker market conditions for MTN and its combined exposure to South Africa and Nigeria. On April 10, 2017, S&P Global
