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Fitch Upgrades TD AMERITRADE Holding Corp Debt to 'BB+'; Affirms IDR at 'BB+'.


CHICAGO -- Fitch Ratings upgrades the long-term rating of TD AMERITRADE Holding Corporation's (AMTD AMTD - Affordability and Manufacturing Technology Demonstration
AMTD - Arithmetic Mean Temperature Difference
AMTD - Automatic Magnetic Tape Distribution
) senior debt term-loan borrowings to 'BB+' from 'BB'. At the same time, the long-term Issuer Default Rating (IDR) is affirmed at 'BB+'. The Rating Outlook remains Positive for both the senior debt and the IDR.

TD AMERITRADE Holding Corporation's long-term debt
Long-Term Debt
Loans and financial obligations lasting over one year.

Notes:
For example debts obligations such as bonds and notes which have maturities greater than one year would be considered long-term debt. Other securities such as T-bills and commercial papers would not be long-term debt as their maturities are typically shorter than one year.

In the U.K., long-term debts are known as "long-term loans.
 consists of the following:

--$250 million term loan A senior secured notes maturing Dec. 31, 2011;

--$1.650 billion term loan B senior secured notes maturing Dec. 31, 2012.

The rating upgrade on the senior long-term debt is based on TD AMERITRADE's progress in paying down debt according to its schedule. Current debt outstanding is approximately $1.7 billion at Dec. 31, 2006. AMTD paid back approximately $500 million total debt between the date of the acquisition close and fiscal year-end 2006. Fitch cites the reduced leverage as a key reason for the upgrade. At the same time Fitch affirms the IDR rating at 'BB+' because the issuer's probability of default profile The normal default settings assigned to an application or system. See user default profile. has not changed radically. AMTD is still in the process of integrating a large acquisition and while revenues and expense synergies appear likely to be met, the company faces challenges in establishing itself as an asset gatherer and diversifying its revenues base to more fee-based.

Fitch maintains the Positive Outlook because leverage metrics are improving and because the company is in the process of meeting its established targets. Debt to equity has already declined over 40% since deal close. The Positive Outlook also indicates that continuing to meet synergies and debt reduction targets could merit higher ratings over the intermediate term.

Fitch's rating definitions and the terms of use 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 are also available from the 'Code of Conduct' section of this site.
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Publication:Business Wire
Date:Feb 2, 2007
Words:330
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