S&P upgrades Estee Lauder to A+

Standard & Poor's said it raised its long-term corporate credit rating on Estee Lauder Cos. Inc. to A+ from A.

The outlook is stable.

The agency also raised all related issue-level ratings on the company's unsecured debt by one notch and affirmed the A-1 commercial paper rating on Estee Lauder.

All Estee Lauder ratings were removed from CreditWatch, where they were placed with positive implications on Nov. 26.

"We base our upgrade primarily on the reassessment of the surplus cash on Estee Lauder's balance sheet, following the release of our revised methodology," S&P credit analyst Jacqueline Hui said in a news release.

"Given historically successful new product development and effective advertising, we expect Estee Lauder to sustain its strong market positions, to continue generating good cash flows, and to maintain leverage below 1.5x and funds from operations to total net debt above 60%."

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