Dominion Bond Rating Service has announced:
that Yellow Media’s conversion, as described, is not expected to have any impact on its current R-1 (low), BBB (high), BBB and Pfd-3 (high) credit ratings. DBRS notes that its credit ratings remain supported by: (1) a manageable business risk profile to date, with Yellow Media’s Directories segment (more than 90% of EBITDA) exhibiting stable results, while cyclical pressure remains evident in its Vertical Media segment (less than 10% of EBITDA), and (2) the improvement in its financial risk profile, which has been a direct result of debt reduction efforts afforded by its reduced distribution rate in May 2009.
…
Additionally, DBRS notes that since Yellow Media lowered its distribution in 2009, the Company has improved its financial risk profile by reducing leverage to end 2009 with debt-to-EBITDA of roughly 2.57 times, down from 2.91 times at the end of 2008. The Company also announced that it plans to continue deleveraging during this transitional period.
…
While reduced leverage helps to support Yellow Media’s financial risk profile, DBRS notes that its ratings are largely based on its business risk profile. While there are significant risks on the horizon as the Company repositions its businesses to adapt to an increasingly digital world, to date DBRS has seen no evidence that this transformation has materially changed the Company’s business risk profile – that is, it retains its leading position as the incumbent directory company across Canada, servicing more than 400,000 local small and medium-sized enterprises.
YPG’s press release is titled Yellow Pages Income Fund Provides Clarity on Path to Conversion to a Corporation
YPG has four preferred share issues outstanding: YPG.PR.A & YPG.PR.B (Operating Retractible) and YPG.PR.C & YPG.PR.D (FixedReset). All are tracked by HIMIPref™ and all are relegated to the Scraps subindex on credit concerns.
This entry was posted on Thursday, February 11th, 2010 at 6:45 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.
DBRS: YPG's Reorganization Harmless
Dominion Bond Rating Service has announced:
YPG’s press release is titled Yellow Pages Income Fund Provides Clarity on Path to Conversion to a Corporation
YPG has four preferred share issues outstanding: YPG.PR.A & YPG.PR.B (Operating Retractible) and YPG.PR.C & YPG.PR.D (FixedReset). All are tracked by HIMIPref™ and all are relegated to the Scraps subindex on credit concerns.
This entry was posted on Thursday, February 11th, 2010 at 6:45 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.