Announcement:
Moody's assigns strongest covenant quality score in 5 years to HC2
Holdings' bond offering
09 Nov 2018
New
York, November 09, 2018 -- Moody's Investors Service has assigned an
overall covenant quality (CQ) score of 1.57 to HC2 Holdings, Inc.'s
$540m _% senior secured notes due 2021. The score is the strongest the
rating agency has assigned to any North American bond since March
2013.
Moody's
scores covenant protections on a five-point scale, with 1.0 denoting
the strongest investor protections and 5.0, the weakest. The agency
assesses investor protections in six key risk categories: cash leakage
(dividends), risky investments, leveraging, liens subordination,
structural subordination, and change of control.
The
bonds received a best-possible score of 1.0 for cash leakage risk and
a score of 1.15 for risky investments, the strongest in this category
for any North American bond since Moody's began tallying CQ scores in
2011. Notable investor protections against cash leakage include the
absence of a builder basket and a prohibition against designating
subsidiaries as unrestricted, while additional protections against
risky investments include an obligation to apply (or offer to apply)
asset sale proceeds to repay the bonds at 103%, a cap on investments
in non-guarantor subsidiaries and a requirement of 100% cash
consideration for specified asset sales.
Similarly, a score of 1.10 in the leveraging risk category is the
strongest on record. The score is attributable to protections
including the absence of a $1 debt test and the inclusion of numerous
financial maintenance covenants.
Subscribers can read the full report,"HC2 Holdings, Inc. Covenant
Quality Pre-Sale Snapshot: $540m _% Senior Secured Notes due 2021,"
at:
https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_1147782.
View the
scores of similar issues:
https://www.moodys.com/newsandevents/topics/covenants/-/007001/0/007001/-/0/-/0/tp.
See
Moody's Covenant Quality Scoring Criteria:
http://www.moodys.com/viewresearchdoc.aspx?docid=PBC_150958.
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This
publication does not announce a credit rating action. For any credit
ratings referenced in this publication, please see the ratings tab on
the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for the most updated credit
rating action information and rating history.
Evan
Friedman
Senior Vice President
Corporate Finance Group
Moody's Investors Service, Inc.
250 Greenwich Street
New York, NY 10007
U.S.A.
JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376
Client Service: 1 212 553 1653
Glenn B.
Eckert
Associate Managing Director
Corporate Finance Group
JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376
Client Service: 1 212 553 1653
Releasing Office:
Moody's Investors Service, Inc.
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JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376
Client Service: 1 212 553 1653
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