Fitch Places Aquila on Rating Watch Positive on Merger Announcement.NEW YORK New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of -- 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 placed Aquila, Inc. (ILA ILA abbr. insulinlike activity ) on Rating Watch Positive following announcement of two separate agreements. Under the terms of one agreement, Great Plains Energy, Inc. (GXP GXP Geospatial Exploitation Products GXP Galaxy Police (anime) GXP Grid Exit Point (utilities, electricity) GxP Good X Practice ) will acquire the common shares of ILA and assume the remaining ILA debt. Pursuant to the second agreement, ILA will sell its non-Missouri utility properties to Black Hills Power for cash. The affected ratings are as follows: --Issuer Default Rating (IDR IDR In currencies, this is the abbreviation for the Indonesian Rupiah. Notes: The currency market, also known as the Foreign Exchange market, is the largest financial market in the world, with a daily average volume of over US $1 trillion. ) 'B'; --Senior secured 'BB/RR1'; --Senior unsecured 'B+/RR3'. Approximately $1.4 billion of debt is affected. The announced transactions are subject to approval of shareholders and to various state and federal regulatory approvals and may take a year or more to effect. If both transactions take place as planned, then GXP will be the surviving corporate entity and obligor. While Fitch does not currently rate GXP, Fitch anticipates that the ratings would ultimately be upgraded upon consummation of the transactions based upon GXP's current financial capability as well as the prospects for the successful consolidation of two neighboring regulated utilities with complementary businesses and stable operating performance. The two transactions are conditioned upon one another. If the transactions fail to occur, the current ratings reflect Fitch's view of ILA's credit on a stand-alone basis. ILA is a regulated electric and gas utility serving more than 460,000 electric and 900,000 natural gas customers in five Midwestern states. Fitch's Recovery Ratings (RR) are a relative indicator of creditor recovery prospects on a given obligation within an issuers' capital structure in the event of a default. A broad overview of Fitch's RR methodology as it relates to specific sectors can be found at www.fitchratings.com/recovery. 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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