Moody's rates Huntsman loan Ba2

Moody's Investors Service said it assigned a Ba2 (LGD2) rating to Huntsman International LLC's amended secured term loan B. Huntsman International is a direct subsidiary of Huntsman Corp., and both entities have Ba3 corporate family ratings with stable outlooks.

Huntsman is asking holders of its senior secured term B, series 1 and series 2, to extend the maturity by two years to April 2019 in exchange for a 25 basis points fee and an increase in the undrawn spread to Libor plus 300 bps.

"Huntsman is seeking to extend the maturity of its term loan as the lack of EBITDA growth has limited the free cash flow available for debt repayment,” John Rogers, senior vice president at Moody's, said in an agency news release.

In the meantime, the Ba3 corporate family ratings at Huntsman and Huntsman International reflect their solid competitive position in urethanes, experienced management team and management's stated intention to reduce net leverage to about 2.0 to 2.5 times on a normalized EBITDA basis, Moody’s said.

However, the agency said current credit metrics are relatively weak for the rating due to the Oct, 1, 2014 acquisition of Rockwood Specialties Group Inc.'s pigments and performance additives business for $1.2 billion. Huntsman's pro forma debt-to-EBITDA ratio for the last 12 months ended June 30 is 4.8 times.

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