Moody’s Mulls Independencia Upgrade

Moody’s has put the B3 local currency corporate family rating and the B3 foreign currency senior unsecured rating of Independencia on review for possible upgrade. “The review of Independencia’s B3 ratings reflects primarily the successful reduction of its susceptibility to a trade embargo from importing countries due to animal disease by expanding the number of slaughterhouses from five to 12 and slaughter operations from three to seven states, both by the end of 2008 and compared to when Moody’s first assigned the ratings,” says Moody’s analyst Soummo Mukherjee. The review will consider the company’s longer-term growth and financial strategy and the expected cushion it is likely to maintain with a net debt/Ebitda financial covenant in its $225m bond due 9.875% of 2017 that steps-down from 4.25x to 4.00x at the end of 2008, to 3.75x at the end of 2009 and to 3.50x at the end of 2010.