Fitch Places Duke Energy & Duke Power on Rating Watch Positive.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 the ratings of Duke Energy Corp. (DUK DUK Duke Energy Corporation (stock symbol) DUK Dead Upon Keyboard ) and its wholly-owned subsidiary Duke Power LLC (Logical Link Control) See "LANs" under data link protocol. LLC - Logical Link Control (DP) on Rating Watch Positive following the announcement of plans to spin-off to shareholders its natural gas business, including approximately $3 billion of Duke Capital LLC debt. The ratings of Duke Capital and Texas Eastern Transmission, LP remain on Rating Watch Positive, where they were placed on April 4, 2006 recognizing the successful disposal of non-core assets and associated reduction in business risk. Management is targeting a January 1, 2007 closing date and expects the transaction to qualify for tax free treatment for U.S. federal income tax purposes. Fitch will resolve the Positive Rating Watch on each of the affected entities following the close of the transaction, when further details, particularly the capital structure of each of the entities and the corporate structure of Duke Capital, are known. Rating Watch Positive indicates ratings may be affirmed or raised in the near-term. Fitch considers the transaction to be significantly credit positive for Duke Energy Corp. and largely credit neutral for Duke Capital bondholders. Upon completion of the spin-off, the absolute level of Duke Energy consolidated debt will decline substantially and leverage and interest coverage measures are expected to strengthen. The positive Rating watch also recognizes Duke Energy's recently announced agreement to sell its remaining commercial marketing and trading business, Cinergy Marketing and Trading, LP, to Fortis for approximately $350 million. Although there is no direct impact on the financial profile of Duke Power, Fitch believes the company's overall credit profile benefits from the decline in consolidated financial leverage. The driver of the Rating Watch Positive for Duke Capital is the significant reduction in business risk achieved over the past two years, primarily due to the successful disposition of its merchant generation fleet and associated derivative contracts, and not the separation from Duke Energy, which Fitch largely views as credit neutral. While Duke Capital will lose the benefits of a stronger, well capitalized parent company, Fitch believes the restructured company will maintain access to debt and equity markets. Duke Capital's credit profile also benefits from the disposition of the international and real estate businesses and going forward, the company will derive virtually all of its earnings and cash flow from the regulated natural gas transmission and distribution businesses in the U.S. and Canada and its equity interest in Duke Energy Field Services. Duke Energy will retain its four integrated electric and/or electric and gas combination utility subsidiaries, the commercial power business, which operates approximately 8,700 MW of electric generation primarily in the Midwest and the ownership of the international and real estate businesses currently owned by Duke Capital. The international operations Internal Operations (I.O., IO or I/O) is a fictional American Intelligence Agency in Wildstorm comics. It was originally called International Operations. I.O. first appeared in WildC.A.T.S. volume 1 #1 (August, 1992) and was created by Brandon Choi and Jim Lee. include electric generation facilities in eight Latin American countries List of American countries Nations:
Ratings Placed on Rating Watch Positive Duke Energy Corp --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. ) 'BBB'. Duke Power Company LLC --IDR 'BBB+'; --Secured debt 'A' (including York County York County may refer to one of several counties:
--Senior unsecured debt Unsecured debt Debt that does not identify specific assets that the debtholder is entitled to in case of default. 'A-' (including Gaston County (NC) and Oconee County Oconee County is the name of two counties in the United States:
--Commercial paper (CP) 'F2'. The following ratings remain on Rating Watch Positive: Duke Capital LLC --IDR 'BBB-'; --Senior unsecured debt 'BBB-'; --CP 'F3'. Texas Eastern Transmission, LP --IDR 'BBB'; --Senior unsecured debt 'BBB'. Edinburg Texas Industrial Development Corp. --Lease revenue bonds 'BBB-'. California Maritime Infrastructure Authority --Lease revenue bonds (San Diego Unified Port District-South Bay Point Acquisition) 'BBB-'. 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. |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Bahamas 
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion