TORONTO (Standard & Poor's CreditWire) Jan. 26, 2000--Standard & Poor's today affirmed its single-'A'-plus corporate credit rating on BCE Inc. The rating was removed from CreditWatch, where it was placed March 25, 1999. The outlook is stable. The rating was initially placed on CreditWatch following the announcement that BCE would receive C$5.1 billion in cash from the sale of a 20% stake in Bell Canada Holdings to Ameritech Corp. More recently, the company remained on CreditWatch as a result of the significant increase in the value of BCE's investment in Nortel Networks Inc. and the uncertainty surrounding the company's desire to distribute out its holding in Nortel. The CreditWatch removal follows the announcement that BCE will, in fact, distribute out
