DBRS Morningstar Assigns Provisional Ratings to Navient Private Education Refi Loan Trust 2023-A

DBRS, Inc. (DBRS Morningstar) assigned provisional ratings to the following classes of notes (the Notes) to be issued by Navient Private Education Refi Loan Trust 2023-A (Navient 2023-A):

-- $480,300,000 Class A Notes rated AAA (sf)
-- $30,200,000 Class B Notes rated AA (sf)

The provisional ratings are based on DBRS Morningstar’s review of the following analytical considerations:

-- The transaction assumptions consider DBRS Morningstar’s baseline macroeconomic scenarios for rated sovereign economies, available in its commentary Baseline Macroeconomic Scenarios For Rated Sovereigns: December 2022 Update, published on December 21, 2022. These baseline macroeconomic scenarios replace DBRS Morningstar’s moderate and adverse COVID-19 pandemic scenarios, which were first published in April 2020.
-- Transaction capital structure, ratings, and form and sufficiency of available credit enhancement.
-- The ability of the transaction to withstand stressed cash flow assumptions and repay investors in accordance with the terms of the Navient 2023-A transaction documents.
-- The sequential-pay structure.
-- Structural features of the transaction that require the Class A Notes to enter into full turbo principal amortization under certain circumstances.
-- The quality and credit characteristics of the student loans and underlying borrowers.
-- The ability of Navient Solutions, LLC as servicer and Earnest Operations LLC (Earnest) as subservicer to perform collections on the collateral pool and other required activities.
-- The legal structure and expected presence of legal opinions that address the true sale of the student loans, the nonconsolidation of the trust, that the trust has a valid first-priority security interest in the assets, and the consistency with the DBRS Morningstar “Legal Criteria for U.S. Structured Finance.”

The collateral backing the Notes consists of fixed-rate student loan refinancings. Earnest, which was acquired by Navient Corporation in November 2017, is an online lending platform primarily focused on offering student loans throughout the United States.

ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIAL, GOVERNANCE CONSIDERATIONS
There were no Environmental/Social/Governance (ESG) factors that had a significant or relevant effect on the credit analysis.

A description of how DBRS Morningstar considers ESG factors within the DBRS Morningstar analytical framework can be found in the DBRS Morningstar Criteria: Approach to Environmental, Social, and Governance Risk Factors in Credit Ratings at https://www.dbrsmorningstar.com/research/396929 (May 17, 2022).

Notes:
All figures are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted.

The principal methodology applicable to the rating is Rating U.S. Private Student Loan Securitizations (October 28, 2022; https://www.dbrsmorningstar.com/research/404500/rating-us-private-student-loan-securitizations).

Other methodologies referenced in this transaction are listed at the end of this press release.

The DBRS Morningstar Sovereign group releases baseline macroeconomic scenarios for rated sovereigns. DBRS Morningstar analysis considered impacts consistent with the baseline scenarios as set forth in the following report: https://www.dbrsmorningstar.com/research/384482 .

The rating was initiated at the request of the rated entity.

The rated entity or its related entities did participate in the rating process for this rating action.

DBRS Morningstar had access to the accounts, management and other relevant internal documents of the rated entity or its related entities in connection with this rating action.

This is a solicited credit rating.

Please see the related appendix for additional information regarding the sensitivity of assumptions used in the rating process.

DBRS, Inc.
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The rating methodologies used in the analysis of this transaction can be found at: https://www.dbrsmorningstar.com/about/methodologies.

Rating U.S. Structured Finance Transactions (February 6, 2023)
https://www.dbrsmorningstar.com/research/409449/rating-us-structured-finance-transactions

Operational Risk Assessment for U.S. ABS Servicers (April 5, 2023)
https://www.dbrsmorningstar.com/research/412303/operational-risk-assessment-for-us-abs-servicers

Operational Risk Assessment for U.S. ABS Originators (April 5, 2023)
https://www.dbrsmorningstar.com/research/412302/operational-risk-assessment-for-us-abs-originators

Legal Criteria for U.S. Structured Finance (December 7, 2022)
https://www.dbrsmorningstar.com/research/407008/legal-criteria-for-us-structured-finance.

For more information on this credit or on this industry, visit www.dbrsmorningstar.com or contact us at info@dbrsmorningstar.com.