Moody's assigns Orange bonds Baa3

Moody's Investors Service said it assigned a Baa3 long-term rating to Orange's new undated six-year, eight-year and 10-year non-call deeply subordinated fixed-to-reset rate hybrid bonds.

Orange (formerly, France Telecom) will issue the bonds under its €30 billion medium-term note program, which the agency has simultaneously rated provisional Baa3 for junior subordinated bond issues. The size of the hybrid bonds remains subject to market conditions.

All other ratings of Orange and its guaranteed subsidiaries, as well as the stable outlook on those ratings, remain unchanged.

"The Baa3 rating assigned to the hybrid bonds is two notches below Orange's senior unsecured rating of Baa1, primarily because the bonds are deeply subordinated to other debt and only senior to common equity in the company's capital structure," Carlos Winzer, Moody's senior vice president and lead analyst for Orange, said in a news release.

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