Moody's downgrades Syngenta to junk

Moody's Investors Service said it downgraded the senior unsecured ratings on Syngenta Finance NV and Syngenta Finance AG to Ba2 from Baa2.

The agency also said it withdrew the investment-grade ratings on parent company Syngenta AG and assigned a Ba2 corporate family rating and Ba2-PD probability of default rating.

Moody's also said it downgraded the short-term ratings of Syngenta and its guaranteed subsidiaries, Syngenta Wilmington Inc. and Syngenta Finance NV to not-prime from prime-2.

The outlook is stable.

This concludes a review for downgrade that began in February 2016.

The downgrades follow the successful completion May 18 of the first settlement of China National Chemical Corp.'s (ChemChina) tender offer for Syngenta, which paves the way for closing acquisition for a cash consideration of about $44 billion.

The downgrades reflects the increase in Syngenta's and ChemChina's stand-alone debt leverage combined with the potential pressures on Syngenta's financial profile resulting from ChemChina's highly leveraged capital structure after the acquisition, Moody's explained.

Syngenta's total debt-to-EBITDA after the transaction is expected to be higher than 4x.

© 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.