Moody’s cuts, rates Focus loan B1

Moody’s Investors Service said it downgraded Focus Financial Partners LLC’s corporate family rating and senior secured debt ratings to B1 from Ba3 and its probability of default rating to B1-PD from Ba3-PD. Concurrently, Moody's assigned a B1 rating to the firm’s just launched $500 million senior secured term loan.

Focus plans to use the new loan for its upcoming acquisition by Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, LLC. The company’s outstanding debt will remain in place, and Moody’s said it expects Focus’ revolving credit facility capacity to be increased to $890 million from $650 million.

“The downgrade reflects the impact the new LBO-related debt will have on Focus' leverage ratio (debt/EBITDA including Moody's standard adjustments), which will rise to 6x from its current level of 5.1x as of year-end 2022. Moody's expects the company's leverage ratio (debt/EBITDA including Moody's standard adjustments) to remain elevated over the next couple of quarters as higher market volatility and tighter financial conditions slow revenue growth at Focus' existing partner firms and acquisitions of new partner firms,” the agency said in a press release.

The outlook is stable.

© 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.