{"id":20603,"date":"2012-12-14T21:35:10","date_gmt":"2012-12-15T01:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.prefblog.com\/?p=20603"},"modified":"2012-12-14T21:35:10","modified_gmt":"2012-12-15T01:35:10","slug":"ema-trend-now-stable-says-dbrs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prefblog.com\/?p=20603","title":{"rendered":"EMA Trend Now Stable, Says DBRS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>DBRS <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dbrs.com\/research\/253322\/dbrs-changes-trend-on-emera-inc-to-stable-from-negative.html\">has announced<\/a> that it:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>has today confirmed Emera Inc.\u2019s (Emera) Issuer Rating, Medium-Term Notes and Preferred Shares &#8211; Cumulative at BBB (high), BBB (high) and Pfd-3 (high), respectively, and changed the trends on all to Stable from Negative. This trend change reflects DBRS\u2019s expectations that Emera will continue to reduce its non-consolidated debt-to-capital ratio, in the medium term, to below 30% to be in line with its rating category. The resolution of the Negative trend followed a full assessment of Emera\u2019s overall financing strategy on proposed projects and plans to reduce its non-consolidated debt to levels commensurate with its current rating. Emera is currently on track to deleverage its non-consolidated balance sheet, as reflected by (1) a $250 million preferred shares offering in June 2012 and (2) a bought deal offering of approximately $200 million, which settled on December 14, 2012. Pro forma the bought deal offering, Emera\u2019s unconsolidated debt-to-capital is approximately 38% (versus approximately 41.5% as of June 30, 2012).<\/p>\n<p>The credit quality of Emera is based on its low business risk and is supported by its strong portfolio of diversified regulated businesses operating in a reasonable regulatory environment. Emera\u2019s business risk profile is viewed as strong. Emera\u2019s earnings and cash flow are largely generated by its relatively low-risk regulated subsidiaries. Furthermore, dividends and interest income flowing up from its operating subsidiaries continue to adequately cover Emera\u2019s interest and operating costs.<\/p>\n<p>On April 3, 2012, DBRS changed the trend on Emera\u2019s rating to Negative from Stable. This rating action reflected DBRS\u2019s concern regarding the ongoing high degree of non-consolidated leverage at the holding company level for the current rating.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The company&#8217;s preferred shares outstanding are EMA.PR.A and EMA.PR.C, both tracked by HIMIPref&trade; and both assigned to the Scraps index on credit concerns. The assignment of a negative trend in April 2012 was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.prefblog.com\/?p=18286\">reported on PrefBlog<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DBRS has announced that it: has today confirmed Emera Inc.\u2019s (Emera) Issuer Rating, Medium-Term Notes and Preferred Shares &#8211; Cumulative at BBB (high), BBB (high) and Pfd-3 (high), respectively, and changed the trends on all &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-issue-comments"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prefblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prefblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prefblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prefblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prefblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/prefblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20603\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prefblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prefblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prefblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}