{"id":29705,"date":"2015-07-07T21:48:59","date_gmt":"2015-07-08T02:48:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/prefblog.com\/?p=29705"},"modified":"2015-07-07T21:48:59","modified_gmt":"2015-07-08T02:48:59","slug":"cu-ciu-outlook-negative-sp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prefblog.com\/?p=29705","title":{"rendered":"CU, CIU Outlook Negative: S&amp;P"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Standard &#038; Poor&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.standardandpoors.com\/en_US\/web\/guest\/article\/-\/view\/type\/HTML\/id\/1414169\">has announced<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>\u2022We are revising our outlook to negative from stable on Calgary, Alta.-based ATCO Ltd. and its subsidiaries Canadian Utilities Ltd (CU Ltd.) and CU Inc.\n<li>\u2022We are also affirming our &#8216;A&#8217; long-term corporate credit rating on ATCO and its subsidiaries.\n<li>\u2022The negative outlook reflects our view that ATCO&#8217;s planned capital program could put pressure on the company&#8217;s financial metrics, affecting our positive comparable rating analysis modifier on the company.<\/ul>\n<p><b>&#8230;<\/b><br \/>&#8220;We base the outlook revision on our view that the company&#8217;s forecast financial metrics in the context of a more difficult Alberta operating environment, as well as its aggressive capital program, weaken the rationale for our positive comparable rating modifier on the company,&#8221; said Standard &#038; Poor&#8217;s credit analyst Stephen Goltz. &#8220;Recent regulatory decisions also put additional pressure on the company&#8217;s revenue and cash flow,&#8221; Mr. Goltz added.<br \/><b>&#8230;<\/b><br \/>We expect the company to invest heavily in the next few years, similar to the past three. Furthermore, although supported by long-term contracts, not all of the future spending will be regulated. Our forecast expects development of the water infrastructure and liquids storage project in Alberta, a natural gas pipeline and cogeneration power plant in Mexico, and the Fort McMurray West Transmission Project.<\/p>\n<p>The outcome of the Alberta Utilities Commission&#8217;s latest decisions also affect ATCO&#8217;s revenue and recovery of prudent capital spending contributing additional pressure on cash flow stability.<\/p>\n<p>The negative outlook reflects our view that the planned capital program that is forecast to occur in the context of a weaker Alberta operating environment could put pressure on financial metrics, which would cause us to remove our positive [comparable rating analysis] modifier on the company.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Affected issues are CU Inc.&#8217;s CIU.PR.A and CIU.PR.C, and Canadian Utilities&#8217; CU.PR.C, CU.PR.D, CU.PR.E, CU.PR.F and CU.PR.G. All are tracked by HIMIPref&trade;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Standard &#038; Poor&#8217;s has announced: \u2022We are revising our outlook to negative from stable on Calgary, Alta.-based ATCO Ltd. and its subsidiaries Canadian Utilities Ltd (CU Ltd.) and CU Inc. \u2022We are also affirming our &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-29705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-issue-comments"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prefblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29705","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=29705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/prefblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29705\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prefblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prefblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prefblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}