Moody's cuts Cox, rates loans Baa3

Moody's Investors Service said it downgraded both Cox Enterprises Inc.'s and its majority owned subsidiary Cox Communications Inc.'s ratings to Baa3 (senior unsecured) from Baa1 and Baa2 following Cox Enterprise's announced agreement to purchase the outstanding publicly held minority interest in Cox Communications. The outlook is stable.

Moody's also assigned Baa3 ratings to the new $2.25 billion revolving credit facility and term loan for Cox Enterprises and to the $7.75 billion revolver, term loan and bridge loan for Cox Communications.

The downgraded ratings include Cox Enterprise's senior unsecured notes and debentures, senior unsecured medium-term notes and short-term rating (cut to prime-3 from prime-2), Cox Communications' senior unsecured notes and debentures, senior unsecured medium-term notes and bank credit facility, senior unsecured debt shelf, junior subordinated debt shelf and preferred shelf and commercial paper (to prime-3 from prime-2), TCA Cable TV Inc.'s senior unsecured notes and debentures and Cox Trust I's and Cox Trust II's preferred shelf.

Within the new ratings, Moody's said it believes that the companies will have extremely narrow financial flexibility through 2007.

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