Moody’s assigns Baa1 to ASML notes

Moody's Investors Service said it assigned a Baa1 rating to ASML Holding NV's (Baa1 stable) new €750 million senior notes due 2027.

Net proceeds will be used to partially finance the €1 billion acquisition of a minority stake in Carl Zeiss SMT (unrated), which the companies announced in early November.

The agency estimates that the proposed note issuance will result in leverage measured as Moody's adjusted debt/EBITDA of around 1.7 times in 2016.

This represents a steep increase in the company's leverage compared to December 2015, when leverage was 0.6 times, but still in line with the assigned Baa1 rating. This is because of the company's leading position in the market for semiconductor lithography equipment, which Moody’s said it expects to further improve owing to the increased likelihood that EUV will be implemented into high volume manufacturing during 2018/19 and the strengthening of the company's metrology offering as a result of the acquisition of Hermes Microvision, Inc. (HMI unrated).

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