Fitch Places Interpool on Rating Watch Positive.CHICAGO -- Fitch Ratings has placed the debt ratings of Interpool Inc. (IPX (Internetwork Packet EXchange) The network layer protocol in the NetWare operating system. Similar to the IP layer in TCP/IP, it contains a network address and allows messages to be routed to a different network or subnet. ) on Rating Watch Positive. IPX's credit ratings remain as follows: Interpool Inc. --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. ) 'BB'; --Senior unsecured debt 'BB'; --Senior secured credit facility 'BB+'. Interpool Capital Trust --Preferred stock 'B+'. Interpool Limited --IDR 'BB'; --Senior secured credit facility 'BB+'. Interpool Container Funding, SRL 1. SRL - Bharat Jayaraman. ["Towards a Broader Basis for Logic Programming", B. Jayaraman, TR CS Dept, SUNY Buffalo, 1990]. 2. SRL - Schema Representation language. 3. SRL - Structured Robot Language. C. Blume & W. Jacob, U Karlsruhe. --IDR 'BB'; --Senior secured credit facility 'BB+'. The Rating Watch Positive reflects IPX's announcement on March 15, 2006 that its wholly owned subsidiary Wholly Owned Subsidiary A subsidiary whose parent company owns 100% of its common stock. Notes: In other words, the parent company owns the company outright and there are no minority owners. , Interpool Containers Limited (ICL (International Computers Ltd., London) The former name of Fujitsu Services, the European-centered arm of the global Fujitsu Group and one of the leading IT services companies in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. ), has entered into an agreement to sell a substantial majority of its operating lease portfolio of standard dry marine cargo containers to a newly formed subsidiary of an investor group based in Switzerland. IPX's container sale involves a total of approximately 273,000 standard dry marine cargo containers owned by ICL, as well as an assignment of all of ICL's rights under existing leases for this equipment. The purchase price is approximately $515 million, which is expected to result in an after-tax gain of approximately $58 million-$62 million during the first quarter of 2006. Following the sale, Interpool and its 50%-owned subsidiary, Container Applications International, Inc., will perform management services on behalf of the purchaser for the containers being sold, and ICL will continue its active business of leasing cargo containers to shipping lines. Fitch believes the sale of the operating lease container portfolio and repayment of $440 million in related debt is consistent with management's stated strategy of strengthening IPX's credit metrics. In considering a possible upgrade of IPX, Fitch will focus on the company's targeted leverage metrics, continued strengthening of operating performance, ability to further unencumber the balance sheet, and compliance with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The container sale is expected to close on March 31, 2006. ICL intends to use the proceeds of the sale to repay approximately $440 million of indebtedness and for general corporate purposes, including the acquisition of additional containers for finance and operating leases. Headquartered in Princeton, NJ, with roots dating to 1968, Interpool Inc. is the holding company for Interpool Limited (Limited), Interpool Container Funding, SRL, and Trac Lease, Inc. (Trac Lease), and owns 50% of Container Applications International, Inc. (CAI (1) (Computer-Assisted Instruction) Same as CBT. (2) See CA. CAI - Computer-Aided Instruction ). Interpool is publicly traded and listed on the New York Stock Exchange New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) World's largest marketplace for securities. The exchange began as an informal meeting of 24 men in 1792 on what is now Wall Street in New York City. (symbol: IPX). 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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