S&P Puts SAFECO's Life Subs Rtgs on CreditWatch Dev.Business EditorsNEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 29, 2003 Standard & Poor's Ratings Services Ratings Service A company, such as Moody's or Standard & Poor's, that rates various debt and preferred stock issues for safety of payment of principal, interest, or dividends. said today that it affirmed af·firm v. af·firmed, af·firm·ing, af·firms v.tr. 1. To declare positively or firmly; maintain to be true. 2. To support or uphold the validity of; confirm. v.intr. its 'BBB+' counterparty Counterparty The other participant, including intermediaries, in a swap or contract. credit rating on SAFECO Safeco Corporation (NYSE: SAF) is a major American national insurance company. It has naming rights to the Seattle Mariners' baseball stadium, Safeco Field. Safeco was founded in Seattle, Washington in 1923 by Hawthorne K. Corp. and its 'A+' counterparty credit and financial strength ratings on the members of the SAFECO Insurance Co. Intercompany Pool (SAFECO), which are SAFECO Corp.'s property/casualty companies. Standard & Poor's also said that the outlook on these companies is stable. At the same time, Standard & Poor's lowered its counterparty credit and financial strength ratings on SAFECO Life Insurance Co. and its wholly owned subsidiaries--SAFECO National Life Insurance Co. and First SAFECO National Life Insurance Co. NY--(collectively referred to as SAFECO Life) to 'A-' from 'A' and placed the ratings on CreditWatch with developing implications. Standard & Poor's took these rating actions after SAFECO Corp. announced today that it intends to sell its life companies. As a result, Standard & Poor's has revised its view of the life companies' position to not strategically important from strategically important. CreditWatch with developing implications indicates that the ratings could be either raised or lowered depending on how the company executes on the sale. Standard & Poor's expects to resolve the CreditWatch status of the ratings within 90 days. Complete ratings information is available to subscribers of RatingsDirect, Standard & Poor's Web-based credit analysis system, at www.ratingsdirect.com. All ratings affected by this rating action can be found on Standard & Poor's public Web site at www.standardandpoors.com; under Credit Ratings in the left navigation bar A set of buttons or graphic images typically in a row or column used as a central point that link you to major topic sections on a Web site. If the navigation bar is a single graphic image with multiple selections, it is known as an imagemap. See imagemap. , select Credit Ratings Actions. |
|
||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion