Moody’s upgrades Lufthansa, debt

Moody's Investors Service said it assigned a Baa3 long term issuer rating to Deutsche Lufthansa AG and withdrew the Ba1 corporate family rating and Ba1-PD probability of default rating.

Concurrently, the agency upgraded the senior unsecured instrument rating to Baa3 from Ba1, the short-term rating to P-3 from NP, the senior unsecured rating on the company's medium-term note program to provisional Baa3 from provisional Ba1 and its short-term rating to provisional P-3 from provisional NP.

The outlook is stable.

"Our decision to upgrade Lufthansa follows the company's positive evolution of its operating profitability which improved markedly in the first half of 2017 and our expectations that its full-year profits and operating cash flow will continue to strengthen on the back of strong demand and cost reductions," Sven Reinke, Moody's senior vice president and lead analyst for Lufthansa, said in a news release.

"Lufthansa has significantly improved its cost base over the last few years, strengthening its competitive profile. In addition, rising profitability and a one-off cash injection into its pension schemes will reduce year-end leverage materially."

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.