S&P: SunGard unchanged

Standard & Poor's said news that SunGard Data Systems Inc. plans to sell its SunGard Higher Education unit to affiliates of Hellman and Friedman will not have an immediate impact on its ratings or outlook.

Hellman and Friedman intends to merge the acquired business with its existing Datatel Inc. unit and operate them under a new name, S&P said.

The agency said it expects to assign new corporate credit and issue-level ratings to the new entity and debt, as well as withdraw all of its existing ratings on Datatel upon the anticipated refinancing of its $1.930 billion in credit facilities via the proposed transaction.

SunGard will apply the total $1.775 billion in gross proceeds to debt reduction, S&P said.

The transaction is expected to close by August 2012. The unit provides software solutions and strategic and systems integration consulting to colleges and universities.

While the transaction will diminish SunGard's revenue diversity moderately, the agency said it expects that financial leverage will decline somewhat.

But the company remains highly leveraged on a pro forma basis, S&P said.

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