date:May 14, 2014
SP meanwhile said they may downgrade Hillshire's respective Baa2 and BBB ratings on expectations that leverage will soar from the takeover.
The fact that the company said it intends to return to investment-grade within three years and take leverage back down to 3.5x may be playing a factor [in today's performance of the bonds], said Carla Norfleet Taylor, a credit analyst at Fitch.
But our preliminary numbers do not see a path to that happening within the three-year time frame, she said. We ne