Moody’s revises Carrols to positive

Moody's Investors Service said it changed the outlook for Carrols Restaurant Group, Inc. to positive from stable.

In addition, the agency affirmed Carrols’ B3 corporate family rating, B3-PD probability of default rating and the B3 rating for its $200 million second-lien senior secured notes, along with its SGL-3 speculative grade liquidity rating.

Moody’s said the change in outlook reflects Carrols’ material improvement in operating performance over the past three quarters, as a steady pipeline of well accepted new product offerings and remodeled restaurants have driven positive same store sales, traffic and average check.

These positive trends along with a material decline in commodities prices – particularly beef – generated improved earnings and credit metrics with leverage on a debt to EBITDA basis of about 4.7 times and EBIT to interest coverage of about 1.3 times for the LTM period ending Dec. 31, 2015, the agency said.

© 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.