Weekly Downgrade Wrap-Up
As usual, we have a week’s worth of ratings agency actions on the debt of buyout-backed companies from Standard & Poor’s Ratings Service and Moody’s Investors Service. This week was slow—two upgrades and one default leading to one withdrawal. One upgrade, interestingly, is on a very recent deal. Last month, KKR purchased $300 million in the senior secured notes of Eastman Kodak. The deal sent Kodak’s stock price down and raised questions as to what KKR’s plan for the stagnant company would be as a debt investor. But the deal at least elicited an upgrade from Moody’s. The ratings agency upgraded Eastman Kodak's speculative grade liquidity rating to SGL-1 from SGL-2 upon the closing of the company's new debt issuance. More details below.
16 October 2009•2 mins read
