S&P puts Nielsen on watch

S&P said it placed all its Nielsen Holdings plc ratings, including the BB issuer rating, on CreditWatch with negative implications.

Nielsen agreed to be acquired by a private equity consortium that has secured fully committed debt and equity financing for the acquisition, including about $5.7 billion of equity.

“We placed our ratings on Nielsen on CreditWatch with negative implications to reflect the possibility that we may downgrade the company by multiple notches in the event the deal closes, based on the likelihood that the pro forma capital structure will result in Nielsen's leverage exceeding the 5x leverage threshold we have set for the BB rating,” the agency said.

S&P said it aims to resolve the CreditWatch once it has evaluated the pro forma capital structure for this transaction.

© 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.