Moody's affirms Black Hills

Moody's Investors Service said it affirmed the debt ratings of Black Hills Corp. (senior unsecured Baa3) and its regulated electric utility subsidiary, Black Hills Power, Inc. (senior unsecured Baa2).

The outlook is revised to stable from negative.

Moody's said that the action follows the closing on Black Hills' acquisition from Aquila, Inc. of its Colorado-based electric utility and its gas utilities based in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa.

"The stable outlook for Black Hills reflects Moody's view that the anticipated change in financial risk due to incremental debt incurred is substantially compensated for by the improvement in the company's overall business risk profile that results from a significant increase in the size,-scale and scope of its regulated utility asset base, especially since the utility asset purchase coincided with a successful sale of non-utility generation assets," said Moody's vice president and senior analyst, Kevin Rose.

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