S&P: SurveyMonkey to negative

Standard & Poor's said it affirmed the B corporate credit rating on SurveyMonkey Inc. and revised its outlook to negative from stable.

The outlook revision to negative stems from SurveyMonkey's recent decision to invest heavily in an enterprise sales effort to grow its online survey subscriber base, S&P said.

The agency said it believes the revised strategy will bring SurveyMonkey into competition with existing online survey competitors already servicing enterprise customers.

The planned increase in marketing spending will hurt EBITDA in the near term, S&P said, while the company will likely realize long-term benefits of the new strategy two years out, if successful.

The ratings also consider the company's niche business focus, narrow product focus, small scale and relatively low barriers to entry, the agency said.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.