Fitch affirms Hutchison

Fitch Ratings said it affirmed the A- long-term foreign currency rating of Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. The agency has maintained a negative outlook, reflecting continuing uncertainty over the group's 3G telecom services that still have a relatively short operating history.

While Hutchison's fundamentals are shored up by strong and steady cash flow contributions from key non-3G operations, Fitch said very strong financial flexibility, high liquidity levels, a healthy debt maturity profile and a large diversified portfolio of quality assets, the rating will be mostly driven by the performance of the group's 3G businesses and its impact on consolidated leverage.

While the leverage ratio (net debt/EBITDA) of 6.3x as of June was high for the rating category, it is in line with Hutchison's projections and within Fitch's expectations.

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