Moody’s gives Lightstone loan B2

Moody’s Investors Service said it gave Lightstone Holdco LLC’s new $34 million revolving credit facility extension due 2026 that will be effective when the $69 million revolving credit facility matures in July 2023 a B2 rating. The agency concurrently affirmed the B2 ratings on Lightstone’s senior secured credit facilities.

Moody’s also changed its outlook for Lightstone to stable from negative.

Today's rating action reflects the material progress made by the project to reduce leverage and address refinancing, operational and environmental issues. In 2022, the project reduced its total term loan B and C debt by around $194 million, which is almost 2.5 times the amount of cumulative debt reduction achieved during the prior three years. Key factors supporting Lightstone's recent debt reduction were the combination of new, stricter covenants and stronger financial performance.

As part of the extension of its term loans to January 2027 from January 2024, Lightstone agreed to more rigorous debt terms including annual limitations on deemed tax distributions. Furthermore, a strong energy market in the latter half of 2021 and all of 2022 resulted in improved financial performance leading to project CFO to debt averaging around 12% and debt service coverage ratio (DSCR) averaging almost 2.7 from 2021 to 2022 compared to an average of less than 5% project CFO to debt and 1.6x DSCR for 2019 and 2020,” Moody’s said in a press release.

The agency said it expects Lightstone to continue its debt reduction and keep CFO to debt averaging at least 10% and DSCR averaging 1.8x.

© 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.