Moody’s ups Franz Haniel to investment-grade

Moody's Investors Service said it assigned a Baa3 long-term issuer rating to Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH.

Concurrently the agency upgraded the backed senior unsecured rating of Haniel Finance Deutschland GmbH to Baa3 from Ba1.

Moody's also withdrew Franz Haniel’s Ba1 corporate family rating and Ba1-PD probability of default rating following the issuer's upgrade to Baa3 as per the agency's practice for corporates with investment-grade ratings.

The outlook is stable.

"Today's upgrade reflects Haniel's prolonged track record of conservative financial policies, low market value leverage and solid interest cover. We expect Haniel to continue maintaining its conservative financial policies going forward whilst generating mid to high single digit total shareholder returns (including a dividend yield of 1%-2%) to the over 650 members of the Haniel family," Stanislas Duquesnoy, Moody's vice president, senior credit officer and lead analyst for Franz Haniel, said in a news release.

The investment-grade rating is further supported by Haniel's relatively defensive portfolio of investments with a good mix between cyclical and non-cyclical businesses and early/late cycle investments, the agency explained.

"The underlying investments of Haniel's portfolio are not very levered either, underpinning Haniel's conservative stance toward financial leverage," Duquesnoy added in the release.

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