Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services assigned its CCC rating to Western Wireless Corp.’s aggregate $600 million senior notes offering, reaffirmed the carrier’s B- corporate credit rating and removed Western Wireless from the ratings agency’s CreditWatch, on which it was placed earlier this year.
The ratings agency also noted recent roaming agreements signed between Western Wireless and a number of GSM carriers in its report.
“The ratings are removed from CreditWatch because this transaction, along with the amended bank credit facility, alleviates Standard & Poor’s concerns related to meeting financial covenants and debt maturities,” said Rosemarie Kalinowski, credit analyst at S&P. “In addition, recent roaming agreements entered into with AT&T Wireless [Services Inc.], Cingular Wireless [L.L.C.] and T-Mobile USA Inc. to cover GSM traffic mitigates near-term competitive threats of an extensive network overbuild by these carriers in Western Wireless’ service area.”
