S&P rates FoxCo loans BB-, notes B-

Standard & Poor's said it assigned a B corporate credit rating to FoxCo Acquisition LLC and its operating subsidiary, FoxCo Acquisition Sub LLC, as well as BB- ratings with recovery ratings of 1 to FoxCo Acquisitions Sub's proposed $50 million senior secured revolving credit facility due 2014 and $485 million senior secured term loan due 2015 and a B- rating with a recovery rating of 5 to the company's proposed $230 million offering of senior unsecured notes due 2016.

The outlook is stable.

Proceeds will be used to finance the acquisition of eight Fox television stations from News Corp. by FoxCo, which is an investment of Oak Hill Capital Partners.

The agency said the B rating reflects FoxCo's high debt leverage, a longer-term concern regarding covenant compliance, weak conversion of EBITDA into discretionary cash flow because of increased interest expense, high sensitivity to election cycles and TV broadcasting's mature revenue growth prospect.

In S&P's view, these factors are only partially offset by a moderate degree of cash flow diversity among the company's TV stations in top-50 markets, its good local news position in most of its markets, broadcasting's good margin and discretionary cash flow potential and strong top-50 market station asset values.

FoxCo's pro forma total debt-to-EBITDA ratio was 7 times for the 12 months ended March 31

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