...Fitch Ratings revised the Outlook for Unilever NV and Unilever PLC (together Unilever) to Stable from Negative in May 2018. The Long-Term Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs) and senior unsecured ratings for Unilever were affirmed at `A+' and the Short-Term IDRs at `F1'. Fitch also assigned a `A+(EXP)' rating to the New TopCo Unilever N.V., which will represent the group on a consolidated basis once the group restructuring is complete. A full list of rating actions is at the end of this commentary. The revision of the Outlook to Stable stems from the company's improving organic growth capacity, strengthening operating profitability and healthy free cash-flow (FCF) generation that we project for 2018-2021, together with Fitch's expectations of no further material increases in shareholder distributions from 2019 or large M&A spending. Our current ratings would tolerate up to EUR1.5 billion annual spending on acquisitions or share buybacks from 2019. This should allow the group to deleverage by 2021...
