Moody’s drops Oxea, loans

Moody's Investors Service said it downgraded Oxea Sarl’s corporate family rating to B3 from B2 and probability of default rating to B3-PD from B2-PD.

Oxea is the ultimate holding company of the subsidiary guarantors to the group's senior secured credit facilities.

In addition, the agency downgraded the rating on the first-lien senior secured credit facility to B2 from B1 and the rating on the second-lien senior secured credit facility due 2020 at Oxea's subsidiary, Oxea Finance & Cy SCA, to Caa2 from Caa1.

The outlooks are now stable.

Moody’s said the corporate family rating downgrade reflects Oxea's continued weak operating performance since the completion of Oman Oil Co.’s (unrated) acquisition of Oxea from private-equity firm Advent International Corp. Credit metrics are extremely weak for the current rating and significantly worse than Moody's expectations, with Moody's adjusted debt/EBITDA increasing to about 8 times for the last 12 months (LTM) ended September 2014.

Performance has suffered as a result of a difficult economic environment in Europe, declines in exports to Asia, as well as the turnaround of Oxea's Bay City plant and subsequent unplanned outage, competitive pressures, and a severe winter in the U.S., the agency said.

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