Moody's affirms CGG

Moody's Investors Service said it confirmed the Ba2 corporate family rating of Compagnie Generale de Geophysique (CGG) and the Ba3 ratings on its two series of $165 million senior notes due 2015.

The provisional Ba2 ratings on its proposed $1.3 billion secured credit facilities remain unchanged, the agency said.

The outlook is stable.

At the same time, Moody's said it has withdrawn the Ba3 corporate family rating of Veritas DGC Inc. for business reasons.

According to Moody's the rating action follows the successful completion of the merger between CGG and Veritas in a part cash, part stock transaction valued at $3.2 billion.

It reflects (i) Moody's view that the transaction is mildly beneficial to CGG's overall business risk profile owing to the greater overall-scale, enhanced leadership in offshore seismic services and data processing as well as more balanced customer mix that will result from the merger and (ii) the agency's expectation that the combined entity's relatively high pro-forma leverage will decline rapidly on the back of the current strong market, characterised by double-digit growth rates.

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