Moody’s downgrades Comet Bidco

Moody’s Investors Service said it downgraded Comet Bidco Ltd.’s (the holding company of the restricted group that owns Clarion Events) corporate family rating to Caa1 from B3 and probability of default rating to Caa1-PD from B3-PD.

Concurrently, Moody’s lowered to Caa1 the B3 ratings of the £307 million senior secured term loan B1 due 2024 and $410 million senior secured term loan B2 due 2024 as well as the £75 million revolving credit facility due 2023. The agency changed the outlook to negative from under review.

The downgrade reflects the pressure on Clarion’s revenue and EBITDA in FY2021 (fiscal year ending Jan. 31, 2021) driven by the cancellation and delays of its trade shows globally, due to the coronavirus outbreak, the agency said.

“Clarion’s leverage is set to deteriorate meaningfully in FY2021, and its liquidity position could become very tight over the coming quarters if cash flow generation turns out to be weaker than we currently expect. Moreover, the prospects of recovery in FY2022 are also highly uncertain,” said Gunjan Dixit, a Moody’s vice president, senior credit officer and lead analyst for Clarion, in a press release.

This rating action concludes the review for downgrade started on April 1, Moody’s 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.