Moody’s Withdraws Grifols Ratings, Says Information to Support Them Insufficient and Inadequate | Companies

Moody’s announced Friday that it had withdrawn its ratings on Grifols, which is currently the subject of a possible takeover bid from Brookfield and the founding family itself, following a stock market meltdown sparked by libel allegations from bearish firm Gotham City Research.

In addition, Moody’s said it “decided to withdraw the ratings because it believes it has insufficient or inadequate information to support the ratings.”

Sources at the company indicate that the contract they had with Moody’s has been terminated, although they will continue to work with Standard & Poor’s and Fitch. According to these sources, Moody’s has withdrawn Grifols’ ratings because from now on, after the contract expires, they will only have access to public information about the company.

Thus, Moody’s has withdrawn the corporate rating B3, as well as the Caa2 rating of the senior debt of Grifols Escrow Issuer, the B2 rating of the senior secured debt and secured loan of Grifols and the B2 rating of the senior secured bank credit lines. Grifols World Wide Operations and Grifols World Wide Operations USA. The agency recalled that before the ratings were withdrawn, the outlook of all these entities associated with the company was stable.

June Sale

In late June, Moody’s downgraded Grifols’ rating from B3 to B2 following a review that began on March 5. The downgrade reflected the drugmaker’s high leverage, even with expected debt reduction from asset sales, and a slowdown in free cash flow recovery.

Grifols thus raised €1,300 million through the placement of senior private debt, of which it used €1,000 million to repay unsecured notes scheduled for May 2025 and to reduce its credit line. mixing open. The company also closed a deal to sell 20% of the capital of Shanghai RAAS.

Despite this, Moody’s notes that Grifols’ liquidity remains fragile.

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