NEW YORK-The $40 million in outstanding debt of Brightpoint Inc., Indianapolis, received a downgrade to B from B-plus from Standard & Poor’s Corp., which also assigned a near-term negative outlook to the company’s debt.
“Increased market saturation for wireless handsets and global economic weakness, particularly in the United States, has resulted in lower consumer demand and diminished near-term growth prospects for Brightpoint,” said Martha Toll-Reed, in the downgrade announcement, issued late Oct. 1.
“While Brightpoint’s profitability for 2002 is expected to benefit from restructuring and cost reduction actions, near-term profitability is expected to remain weak.
Standard & Poor’s described Brightpoint as “a leading distributor and provider of value-added logistics services in the fragmented and highly competitive wireless communications products distribution market.”
