Moody's assigns B3 to Florida Food

Moody's Investors Service said it gave first time ratings to Florida Food Products, LLC (FFP) including a B3 corporate family rating, a B3-PD probability of default rating, a B2 rating for its first-lien credit facilities, consisting of a $50 million revolver due 2026 and a $350 million term loan due 2028, and a Caa2 rating for the $100 million second-lien term loan.

The term loan proceeds along with a common equity contribution from private equity firm Ardian US LLC and rollover equity from MidOcean Partners will be used to repay borrowings and finance the acquisition by Ardian.

“FFP's B3 CFR broadly reflects its very small scale as measured by revenue and competition in the fragmented clean label ingredients market it serves. Limited geographic diversification, concentration of production in one facility, and utilization of one main supplier for its key raw material are also credit constraints. The rating also reflects FFP's high leverage with Moody's lease adjusted debt-to-EBITDA in the high 7x for the trailing 12 months ended June 30, 2021, pro forma for the leveraged buyout,” the agency said in a press release.

Moody’s said it sees debt-to-EBITDA leverage retreating to about 6.5x by the end of FY22 with earnings growth and some debt paydown.

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.