S&P: Altria, Philip Morris on watch

Standard & Poor's said that it placed its BBB+ corporate credit rating on Altria Group Inc. and the BBB+ corporate credit and issue ratings on Philip Morris Capital Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of Altria, on CreditWatch with negative implications, meaning that we could lower or affirm the ratings on completion of its review.

The CreditWatch listing follows the company's announcement that it is acquiring UST Inc. (A/Watch negative/A-1) for $69.50 a share, for a total consideration of $11.7 billion, which includes $1.3 billion of assumed UST debt, the agency said.

S&P noted that it believes that a debt-financed transaction would weaken Altria's credit protection measures well below current levels that support its existing ratings while it also affirmed the BBB rating on Altria's senior unsecured notes, the preliminary BBB senior unsecured issue rating on Altria's existing shelf registration, and the company's A-2 short-term and commercial paper ratings.

At the same time, S&P said it also placed UST's A corporate credit and other ratings, including the company's A senior unsecured debt ratings and A-1 commercial paper rating, on CreditWatch with negative implications.

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