Moody’s: Wisconsin Public Service notes A1

Moody's Investors Service said it assigned an A1 rating to Wisconsin Public Service Corp.’s $250 million three-year senior unsecured notes and affirmed all other ratings, including the short-term Prime-1 rating.

The outlook is stable.

Proceeds will be largely used to repay borrowings under the company’s commercial paper program, which were used to redeem the remaining $100,000 of its 7 1/8% first mortgage bonds due in July 2023 along with five series of preferred stock that aggregated $51.2 million, as well as to refinance its $125 million senior notes, which came due in December 2015.

Moody’s said the A1 issuer and senior unsecured ratings reflect the fully regulated nature of Wisconsin Public Service’s operations. It also considers the constructive relationship with the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin's (PSCW) as well as credit supportive regulatory environment which provides for good cost recovery and visibility of cash flows that underpin the utility's ability to record key credit metrics that are commensurate with the A rating category according to the guidelines provided under the Regulated Electric and Natural Gas Utilities methodology; specifically, three-year CFO pre-W/C to debt and interest coverage have averaged above 22% and 5 times, respectively.

© 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.