S&P lowers Coca-Cola

Standard & Poor's said it lowered all of the long-term ratings on the Coca-Cola Co., including the corporate credit rating to AA- from AA.

The agency also said it affirmed the company’s A-1+ short-term and commercial-paper ratings.

The outlook is stable.

The downgrades reflect an opinion that the projected de-leveraging anticipated from Coke's bottler refranchising over the next two years will not be sufficient to support the AA rating, S&P said.

The agency said it expects Coke to reduce debt primarily with bottler divestiture proceeds, while steadily building cash balances as its free cash flows exceed projected dividend and share repurchases.

This should result in a ratio of debt-to-EBITDA approaching 2x over the next two years, S&P said.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.