Moody’s rates GrafTech, facilities B1

Moody's Investors Service said it assigned a B1 corporate family rating and a B1-PD probability of default rating to GrafTech Finance Inc.

The company's ratings were moved to GrafTech Finance from GrafTech International Ltd. because the company plans to establish new senior secured credit facilities with GrafTech Finance as a borrower and to redeem all of the existing debt issued by GrafTech International.

The agency assigned a B1 rating to the proposed senior secured credit facilities, which include a $250 million senior secured revolving credit facility and a $1.5 billion senior secured term loan.

The ratings are commensurate with the corporate family rating because the revolver and the term loan will share in the same collateral package and will account for virtually all of the debt in the company's capital structure.

Term loan proceeds will be used to pay a $1.1 billion shareholder dividend and to repay $300 million of senior notes and existing revolver borrowings.

Moody's also assigned a speculative grade liquidity rating of SGL-1 assuming the company will continue to publicly report its financial information.

The outlook is stable.

The existing ratings at GrafTech International will be withdrawn when the proposed refinancing is completed.

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