Moody's pares Partner in Pet Food

Moody's Investors Service said it downgraded to B3 from B2 the corporate family rating and to B3-PD from B2-PD the probability of default rating of Artemis Midco (UK) Ltd., the parent company of Partner in Pet Food. Concurrently, the agency pared to B3 from B2 the ratings of the €400 million backed senior secured term loan B and the €62 million backed senior secured revolving credit facility borrowed by Artemis Acquisitions (UK) Ltd. The outlook has been changed to stable from negative.

"The downgrade of PPF's ratings reflects the ongoing pressure on its profitability from the sharp rise in costs of key ingredients and packaging, which will be challenging to fully pass through to customers in 2022, as well as a more aggressive approach to acquisitions, with two sizeable debt-financed transactions already completed and another two earmarked for Q1 2022," said Igor Kartavov, Moody's lead analyst for PPF, in a press release.

"Although PPF has been able to increase its scale and strengthen its business profile in 2020-21 both organically and via acquisitions, we expect its leverage to remain above 6x through at least 2022, while the high number of acquisitions reduces the visibility on longer-term deleveraging trajectory because of potential increases in debt and integration risks," Kartavov added.

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