Moody's lowers Bouygues to Baa1

Moody's Investors Service said it downgraded the long-term issuer and senior unsecured ratings of Bouygues SA to Baa1 from A3 and changed the outlook on its ratings to stable from negative.

"Today's downgrade reflects the reduced contribution to the group of Bouygues Telecom, its mobile and fixed-line telecoms business, which has been negatively affected by the entrance of a fourth player in the French telecoms market since the beginning of 2012, resulting in a weakening of the group's credit metrics," Marie Fischer-Sabatie, Moody's vice president and lead analyst for Bouygues, said in a news release.

"While Bouygues's other businesses, in particular its construction activities, have maintained a stable and solid performance and the group has actively restructured its telecoms business, having generated cumulative savings of €600 million at the end of December 2013, this has not been sufficient to return to metrics in line with the previous A3 rating."

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