Fitch lowers Qurate

Fitch Ratings said it downgraded Qurate Retail, Inc.'s, Liberty Interactive LLC's and QVC Inc.'s long-term issuer default ratings to B from BB-. The agency also slashed QVC's senior secured debt to B+/RR3 from BB+/RR1, Liberty's senior unsecured debt to CCC+/RR6 from BB-/RR4 and Qurate's cumulative redeemable preferred shares to CCC+/RR6 from B+/RR5.

“The downgrades are driven by continued operating underperformance leading to a significant increase in leverage. Although Fitch views Qurate's recovery efforts positively, execution and expense management challenges are expected to continue to be a near-term drag,” the agency said in a press release.

The agency noted that in fiscal 2022 QVC's Fitch-calculated EBITDA secured leverage increased to 4.9x from 2.4x and Qurate's Fitch-calculated EBITDAR leverage increased to 7.8x from 4.3x.

The outlook is negative.

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