British Telecom, MCI Communication Still on S&PWatch.NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--S&P CreditWire 8/22/97--Standard & Poor's ratings on British Telecommunications Communicating information, including data, text, pictures, voice and video over long distance. See communications. PLC and MCI Communications This article is about MCI before it merged with WorldCom. For other uses, see MCI. MCI Communications was an American telecommunications company that was instrumental in legal and regulatory changes that led to the breakup of the AT&T monopoly of American telephony and Corp. remain on CreditWatch, where they were placed Nov. 4, 1996 when the two entities announced their intention to merge. On Feb. 2, 1997, Standard & Poor's stated that upon completion of the merger it expected to equalize e·qual·ize v. e·qual·ized, e·qual·iz·ing, e·qual·iz·es v.tr. 1. To make equal: equalized the responsibilities of the staff members. 2. To make uniform. the ratings of the two companies, assigning as·sign tr.v. as·signed, as·sign·ing, as·signs 1. To set apart for a particular purpose; designate: assigned a day for the inspection. 2. a double-`A' corporate credit rating to the combined entity (Concert). Today's CreditWatch update is to confirm that Standard & Poor's still expects to assign a double-`A' corporate credit rating to Concert upon completion of the merger, provided that there are no additional significant changes in the companies' business and financial profiles in the interim. This announcement follows the recent news that British Telecommunications and MCI (1) (Media Control Interface) A high-level programming interface from Microsoft and IBM for controlling multimedia devices. It provides commands and functions to open, play and close the device. (2) (Microwave Communications Inc. have renegotiated the economic terms of the merger. While the new terms See suggestions for new terms. would imply a higher-than-expected leverage of Concert, the debt coverage ratios will remain adequate for this rating category, in light of Concert's very strong business profile. The double-`A' rating indication previously provided by Standard & Poor's was considered to be on the conservative side, precisely to reflect the challenges faced by the company to enter into the U.S. local market and to maintain its position in the highly competitive long distance market. The rating indication, therefore, incorporated enough flexibility to take this unexpected situation into account, Standard & Poor's said. -0-
REMAINING ON CREDITWATCH WITH NEGATIVE IMPLICATIONS
Rating
British Telecommunications PLC
Corporate credit rating AAA
Senior unsecured debt AAA
REMAINING ON CREDITWATCH WITH POSITIVE IMPLICATIONS
Rating
MCI Communications Corp.
Corporate credit rating A
Senior unsecured debt A
CONTACT: Standard & Poor's Rating Services Juan Jose Garcia Jose Garcia / José García is a common name that can refer to:
or Frank E. Plumley, 212/208-1996 |
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