S&P revises Viacom to negative

Standard & Poor's said it revised its outlook on Viacom Inc. to negative from stable.

At the same time, the agency affirmed its ratings on the company, including the BBB corporate credit rating.

"The outlook revision follows our updated expectations following the company's release of its full-year 2014 results (10-K filing release Nov. 13, 2014)," S&P said.

The full-year 2014 results were modestly below the agency’s expectations, with adjusted leverage rising to 3.1 times. At the same time, the company provided initial guidance for share repurchases of at least $2.5 billion for full-year 2015.

S&P expects that these repurchases will continue to exceed discretionary cash flow generation and Viacom will need to make up for this deficit with debt issuance. As a result, the agency no longer expects that leverage will return to or remain below 3 times for the next few years. Instead, it now expects that adjusted leverage will remain in the low-3 times area.

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