PrefBlog

Standard & Poor’s has announced:

• •We are placing our ‘BBB’ long-term corporate credit ratings on Capital Power Income L.P. (CPI) and CPI Preferred Equity Ltd. (CPIPE) on
  CreditWatch with negative implications.

• •At the same time, we are placing our ‘BBB’ issue-level ratings on CPI’s and Curtis Palmer LLC’s senior unsecured debt, and our ‘BB’ global scale and ‘P-3(High)’ Canada scale ratings on CPIPE’s preferred shares on CreditWatch with negative implications.
• •These rating actions follow the June 20, 2011, joint announcement by CPI and Atlantic Power Corp. (ATP, not rated) of an agreement for ATP to acquire CPI, subject to a favorable vote by CPI’s unitholders and ATP’s shareholders and the necessary regulatory approval. We expect the transaction to be completed in fourth-quarter 2011.
• •The rating actions reflect our view that, if the transaction occurs, the combined entity operating both ATP’s and CPI’s assets could potentially have a business risk or financial risk profile weaker than that of CPI.
• •We will resolve the CreditWatch when we are certain of the outcome in the voting and approval processes and upon greater clarity on the combined entity’s capital structure, business strategy, and financial policies.

DBRS maintained CZP.PR.A and CZP.PR.B at Pfd-3, Review-Negative:

DBRS has maintained the Under Review with Negative Implications status on the BBB (high) Senior Unsecured Debt & Medium-Term Notes rating of Capital Power Income L.P. (the Partnership or CPILP) and the Pfd-3 Cumulative Preferred Shares rating of CPI Preferred Equity Ltd., where they were placed on October 5, 2010.

The rating action follows the joint announcement by Atlantic Power Corporation (Atlantic Power; not rated by DBRS) and CPILP that that they have entered into an arrangement agreement (the Agreement) pursuant to which Atlantic Power intends to acquire, directly and indirectly, all of the outstanding limited partnership units of CPILP for $19.40 per limited partnership unit (the Transaction). APC will pay the purchase price of approximately $1.1 billion using a combination of cash and APC shares, with the cash component capped at $507 million. APC has stated that while it has obtained committed debt financing sufficient to pay the cash portion of the acquisition, it intends on raising approximately $423 million of debt and $200 million in equity to fund the cash component, as well as to refinance certain of CPILP’s bank facilities. The Transaction is a result of the strategic review process undertaken by the Partnership, which was publicly announced on October 5, 2010. The agreed-upon price represents a 4% premium to the CPILP closing price on June 17, 2011.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 21st, 2011 at 8:47 pm and is filed under Issue Comments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.