Issuance of the notes, proceeds from which “will be used to repay indebtedness under existing credit facilities and for general corporate purposes,” according to Moody’s, will have four subsidiaries of Sura Asset Management as guarantors: Sura Asset Management Chile, Sura Asset Management Mexico, Sura Asset Management Peru, and Sura Asset Management Uruguay. Their guarantee covers Sura’s payment obligations and the “indenture jointly and severally, irrevocably and unconditionally, on a senior unsecured basis,” said the New York-based rating agency in its analysis.

Moody’s ratings are based upon Sura Asset Management’s status the leading pension fund manager in Latin America, which gives the company wide client coverage and large scale. Favorable demographics in the region — which is seeing higher salaries and more workplace formalization — also put Sura in an advantageous position.

Moody’s did highlight its concern about the growth of Sura Assset Management’s leverage in recent years, however. The firm’s adjusted debt/earnings (EBITDA) ratio rose to 2.5x by the end of 2016 compared to just 1.6x at the end of 2014. Though this has largely been caused by the currency devaluations throughout Latin America and market volatility — rather than operational factors — Moody’s does view the increase as troubling.

“If financial leverage were to remain at this elevated level, Sura would likely see downward pressure on its current ratings,” stated Moody’s. It did also point out that this is tempered by a “relatively good pre-tax income margin of above 30% in recent years, which is higher than similarly rated peers.”

But as with the leverage question, the company is ultimately constrained by its “relatively limited geographic and product diversification” compared to its global peers. “The rating also considers the relatively limited development of the capital markets and the relatively weaker operating environments in some of the countries in which Sura Asset Management operates,” wrote Moody’s.

Moodle is a free, open source software learning management system (LMS) that allows educators to relatively easily build electronic course materials and entire courses for use in traditional classroom or distance learning environments, such as MOOCs (Massive Open Online Course), and other online options. Similar to the operating paradigm of content management systems (CMS) such as WordPress, Moodle uses themes and plugins to allow learning sites to be customized without programming skills. Like WordPress, Moodle is also built in the PHP programming language.

Above photo: Screenshot of Moodle LMS demo site (credit below)

Nivel Siete offers a variety of learning solutions, hosting, support and consulting services that help organizations succeed in their teaching and learning initiatives, especially those that focus on the use of e-learning for talent management and training. Headquartered in Bogotá’s Usaquen business district, the company serves over 200 customers in Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Honduras and the Dominican Republic.

“We are excited to join forces with Blackboard and help learners and organizations be successful,” said José Diáz, CEO at Nivel Siete. “By working together with Blackboard we will be able to enhance the range of solutions and services we provide to institutions and businesses across Latin America. The local Moodle community will benefit from this acquisition, as it will open up new opportunities to share knowledge and best practices.”

Today’s announcement marks the latest investment made by Blackboard in open source after the recent acquisitions of Remote-Learner UK and X-Ray Analytics technology. Since officially joining the open source community in 2012, Blackboard has been contributing to Moodle with code, testing, platform integrations and bug fixes. It has also supported many community gatherings across the world.

“The addition of Nivel Siete to the Blackboard family testifies to our commitment to open source,” said Matthew Small, senior vice president and managing director, international at Blackboard. “We are seeing strong momentum for our open source solutions and in particular for Moodlerooms, with the addition of more than 80 new customers around the world in the last few months and significant growth in Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Brasil. Our open source solutions play an integral part in our strategy and we will continue to support their growth. I am thrilled to work together with the team at Nivel Siete and improve the educational experience for learners in Latin America.”

Photo credit: “1 MyHomeExample” by Software: Moodle – Lead Developer: Martin Dougiamas Other Contributors: https://moodle.org/dev/contributions.php Content: Creator: Mary Cooch – Publisher: Mary Cooch – Contributors: Christian Cooch. All course content can be found and referenced at Moodle.net with all authors, publishers and contributors clearly listed. This content is made available as Open Education Resources – https://school.demo.moodle.net/. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons