AZP: DBRS Changes Trend To Stable, Discontinues Rating

DBRS has announced that it:

has today changed the trend on its ratings of Atlantic Power Limited Partnership’s (APLP) Issuer Rating (rated B (high)) and its Senior Unsecured Debt & Medium-Term Notes (rated B (high)) to Stable from Negative, and subsequently discontinued these ratings. DBRS has also changed the rating trend of Atlantic Power Preferred Equity Ltd.’s (APPE) Cumulative Preferred Shares (rated at Pfd-5 (high)) to Stable from Negative and has discontinued this rating.

The discontinuation of the ratings of APLP and APPE is due to the request of the issuers.

The company announced in May that:

Consistent with the objective of acting in the best interests of the Company, its shareholders and its other stakeholders, the Company, as also previously disclosed, is committed to evaluating a broad range of potential options. These potential options include further selected asset sales or joint ventures to raise additional capital for growth or potential debt reduction, the acquisition of assets, including in exchange for shares, the dividend level, as well as broader strategic options, including a sale or merger of the Company. The Company has engaged Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Greenhill & Co., LLC to assist the Company in its evaluation of these potential options. No assurance can be given as to how the evaluation of any such potential options may evolve. The Company does not intend to comment further on its evaluation of potential options until it otherwise deems further disclosure is appropriate or required.

This statement was repeated in the 14Q2 10Q.

14Q2 earnings were pretty dreary, with a loss of $0.49 per share. Somebody writing a round-up under the auspices of Sleek Money, whoever they are, claims:

A number of analysts have recently weighed in on AT shares. Analysts at Scotiabank reiterated a “sector underperform” rating on shares of Atlantic Power Corp in a research note on Thursday, June 26th. On a related note, analysts at Imperial Capital initiated coverage on shares of Atlantic Power Corp in a research note on Thursday, June 26th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $7.00 price target on the stock. Finally, analysts at National Bank Financial downgraded shares of Atlantic Power Corp from a “sector perform” rating to an “underperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, June 25th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company. The company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $4.33.

S&P continues to rate the preferred shares at P-5 [Stable].

Atlantic Power Preferred Equity (a subsidiary that guarantees its parent’s debt) has two series of preferred shares outstanding: AZP.PR.A, a PerpetualDiscount, and AZP.PR.B, a FixedReset. Both are tracked by HIMIPref™; both are relegated to the Scraps index on credit concerns.

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