New capital being raised by Comcast via issuance of three sets of bonds will leave its leverage as is and keep the company on track to benefit shareholders and complete its acquisition of NBCU. The analysis comes from Moody’s Investors Service.
The new benchmark size senior unsecured bonds, made up of three tranches of 10-year, 20-year and 30-year bonds, received a Baa1 rating from the Wall Street ref, which noted that it keeps the company’s debt profile at par. Along with $4.7B cash on hand as of 9/30/12, it will allow the company to generate extra working capital and handle general corporate expenses. Leverage will remain at about 2X.
Moody’s said in conclusion the effect will be “…such that it will have significant financial flexibility to both return capital to shareholders as well as accrue capacity (in addition to cash built up at NBCU) to finance an acquisition of the remaining stake in NBCU held by GE.”
