Moody’s ups WorldPay, rates notes Ba2

Moody's Investors Service said it upgraded WorldPay’s corporate family rating to Ba2 from Ba3 and probability of default rating to Ba2-PD from B1-PD.

The agency also assigned a provisional Ba2 rating to a new issue of €400 million senior unsecured notes due 2022 to be issued by Worldpay Finance plc.

The outlook is stable.

At the same time, Moody's assigned a Ba2 corporate family rating and Ba2-PD probability of default rating to Worldpay Group plc, which is the ultimate holding company for the WorldPay group and its operating subsidiaries; and withdrew the previous corporate family rating at Ship Luxco 3 Sarl, as that entity was liquidated as part of the IPO process.

In addition, the ratings of the credit facilities were withdrawn at Ship Luxco 3, Ship Midco Ltd. and Worldpay US Finance LLC following repayment.

This concludes the review for upgrade initiated on Sept. 25.

"The upgrade reflects the combination of WorldPay’s successful IPO launch in October 2015, the proceeds of which were used largely toward debt reduction, as well as strong underlying earnings growth in 2015, which has improved metrics to a level within our previous guidance for an upgrade," Colin Vittery, Moody's vice president and lead analyst for WorldPay, said in a news release.

© 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.