Kraft Heinz Foods Co. Proposed Senior Unsecured Notes Rated 'BBB-'
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CHICAGO (S&P Global Ratings) Sept. 11, 2019--S&P Global Ratings today assigned its 'BBB-' rating to Pittsburgh- and Chicago-based The Kraft Heinz Co.'s proposed senior unsecured notes, which are being offered to qualified institutional buyers under rule 144A with registration rights.
The proposed notes will be issued by the group's primary operating subsidiary, Kraft Heinz Foods Co., and guaranteed by parent The Kraft Heinz Co. The proposed notes rank equally with Kraft Heinz Foods' existing senior unsecured notes, which constitute a substantial majority of the group's approximately $31.1 billion reported debt outstanding as of June 29, 2019.
The company intends to use the net proceeds from this transaction, together with cash on hand, to fund the recently announced redemption and tender offers in a transaction that is neutral to S&P Global Ratings-adjusted leverage, which is in the high-4x area.
All of our existing ratings, including our 'BBB-' issuer credit rating and negative outlook, are unchanged.
Kraft Heinz Co. reported weaker than expected first-half results and leverage is high for the rating category. Assuming 2019 and 2020 EBITDA are not substantially below our expectations, we intend to provide management time to complete its strategic review and embark on a turnaround plan geared toward stabilizing the business and improving credit ratios in line with our expectations for maintaining the rating. Our negative outlook on the issuer credit rating reflects the potential that management may not be able to stabilize the business and that leverage will remain at current levels or rise. We could lower the rating to speculative-grade if we believe Kraft Heinz cannot reduce adjusted leverage below 4x by mid-2021. This could occur if EBITDA drops meaningfully below our recently reduced expectations, which include $6.05 billion reported EBITDA in 2019, compared to $6.4 billion previously, and we come to believe the strategic plan to be announced by the new CEO in early 2020 will be unsuccessful.