Moody’s downgrades ISS

Moody’s Investors Service said it downgraded to Baa3 from Baa2 the long-term issuer rating of ISS Global A/S.

Moody’s also lowered to Baa3 from Baa2 the senior unsecured ratings of the notes issued by ISS Global and ISS Finance BV under the company’s €3 billion euro medium-term note program. The agency also changed the outlook to stable from negative for both entities.

“Today’s rating action was triggered by recent internal control deficiencies, which led to operational issues with certain contracts such as the large contract with Deutsche Telekom, or within certain business units such as the cleaning business in France,” said Eric Kang, a Moody’s vice president, senior analyst and lead analyst for ISS, in a press release.

More positively, the rating incorporates ISS’ conservative financial policy, notably its commitment to take to maintain credit metrics in line with an investment-grade rating, Moody’s said.

The stable outlook assumes ISS will take the necessary measures to address the current operational challenges and improve its internal control procedures. Moody’s said it also believes margins will gradually recover towards 4.5%.

© 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.