Fitch Assigns 'A-' Rating to Lincoln National Corp.'s Capital Securities.CHICAGO -- Fitch Ratings Fitch Ratings An international rating agency for financial institutions, insurance companies, and corporate, sovereign, and municipal debt. Fitch Ratings has headquarters in New York and London and is wholly owned by FIMALAC of Paris. has assigned an 'A-' rating to Lincoln National Corporation's (LNC LNC Legal Nurse Consultant LNC Libertarian National Committee LNC Low Noise Converter LNC Lloyd Noble Center (University of Oklahoma, Norman campus) LNC Local Node Clock LNC Chief Legalman (Naval Rating) ) capital securities program, which is being launched today. Fitch expects LNC to ultimately issue approximately $1.3 billion under this program. The Rating Outlook is Stable. The capital securities are being issued under an existing shelf registration, and will be used in combination with $1 billion of senior notes issued April 4, 2006, primarily to term out short-term financing used to fund LNC's acquisition of Jefferson Pilot Corp. which was completed on April 3, 2006. Approximately $500 million of the funds will be used to repurchase shares of the LNC's common stock under an accelerated stock buyback Stock buyback A corporation's purchase of its own outstanding stock, usually in order to raise the company's earnings per share. stock buyback See buyback. program. LNC's high ratings reflect the company's longstanding strong competitive position in the life insurance industry, solid capitalization capitalization n. 1) the act of counting anticipated earnings and expenses as capital assets (property, equipment, fixtures) for accounting purposes. 2) the amount of anticipated net earnings which hypothetically can be used for conversion into capital assets. , good quality asset portfolio, excellent financial flexibility, and strong operating performance. Factors that partially offset these positives include challenges that LNC faces with respect to strong competition in the life insurance and asset accumulation sectors, particularly in the affluent market segment that LNC has targeted, the degree to which the company's earnings are leveraged to the equity markets, and integration challenges related to the company's acquisition of Jefferson Pilot. In addition, the rating considers the heightened level of regulatory pressures on participants in the insurance industry. Lincoln National Corp., headquartered in Philadelphia, PA, markets a broad range of insurance and asset accumulation products and financial advisory services advisory services advisory services provided to the public, in their capacity as owners and managers of animals, are an important part of veterinary science. They may be provided by government bureaux, by commercial companies who deal in pharmaceuticals or animals or animal primarily to the affluent market segment. On Dec. 31, 2005, the company reported consolidated assets of $125 billion, common equity of $6.4 billion, and $324 billion of individual life insurance in-force. For 2005, LNC reported consolidated net income of $831 million. Fitch assigns an 'A-' rating to the following security with a Stable Outlook: Lincoln National Corporation Lincoln National Corporation (NYSE: LNC) is a holding company, which operates multiple insurance and investment management businesses through subsidiary companies. LNC was organized under the laws of the state of Indiana in 1968, and maintains its principal executive offices -- $1,300,000,000 capital securities due 2066. Fitch's rating definitions and the terms of use Terms of Use are rules set up by the owner of an intellectual property or service to govern how they may be legally used. In many cases, terms of service are used as a contractual agreement between a company and users of a service they provide. of such ratings are available on the agency's public site, www.fitchratings.com. Published ratings, criteria and methodologies are available from this site, at all times. Fitch's code of conduct, confidentiality, conflicts of interest, affiliate firewall, compliance and other relevant policies and procedures Policies and Procedures are a set of documents that describe an organization's policies for operation and the procedures necessary to fulfill the policies. They are often initiated because of some external requirement, such as environmental compliance or other governmental are also available from the 'Code of Conduct' section of this site. |
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