...June 25, 2019 - Pharmaceutical manufacturer AbbVie Inc. plans to buy Allergan PLC for about $63 billion, excluding the assumption of approximately $23 billion in debt from Allergan, funded partially with debt and cash on hand. - We expect pro forma projected leverage will rise materially to the 4x area. We expect the company will repay debt and that leverage will decline to about 3x two years after the transaction close. - S&P Global Ratings is placing all its ratings on AbbVie, including the 'A-' issuer credit rating, 'A-1' short-term rating, and 'A-' issue-level rating, on CreditWatch with negative implications. - We expect to resolve our CreditWatch listing when the transaction closes. - Based on the proposed financing terms, our current forecast of growth of the pro forma entity, and our expectation that the company will use the large majority of its discretionary cash flow to repay debt, we expect to lower the issuer credit rating one notch to '###+' and assign a stable outlook. We...
