Fitch affirms Abbott

Fitch Ratings said it affirmed Abbott Laboratories' issuer default rating, bank loan and senior unsecured debt at A+ and its short-term issuer default rating at F1.

The outlook is stable.

The rating action follows Abbott's announcement of its intention to acquire Advanced Medical Optics, Inc. for $1.36 billion. Fitch expects that the acquisition will be funded by cash and debt proceeds and that total debt leverage will stay in the 1.4 times to 1.6 times range in the intermediate term, including the incremental debt for the Advanced Medical Optics purchase.

The agency said Abbott maintains strong liquidity provided by solid free cash flow generation of $3.24 billion for the latest 12-month period at the end of the third quarter and bank facilities totaling $5.3 billion. The company recently executed a new $2.3 billion one-year credit facility and had $2.81 billion of cash, $956.1 million of short-term investments and $1.1 billion of long-term investments at the end of the third quarter of 2008.

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