Fitch revises Wyeth to stable from negative

Fitch Ratings said it has revised Wyeth's outlook to stable from negative, prompted by more certainty of the final costs related to diet-drug litigation given the likely final court approval of the seventh amendment to the national settlement and the resolution of about one-third of all downstream opt-outs by May 2, 2006.

Fitch said it believes that Wyeth's remaining diet-drug litigation reserves of $5.25 billion, of a total of $21.1 billion, as of March 31, 2006 is sufficient to satisfy the vast majority of current claims.

Fitch still assumes additional reserves to be charged to future earnings but not at the level of previous charges. Diet-drug settlement payments beyond 2006 are expected to be manageable given improving cash flow generation, the agency said.

At the same time, Fitch said it affirmed the A- issuer default rating and senior unsecured credit ratings and F2 commercial paper rating and assigned an A- bank-loan rating.

© 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.