Bulletin: Comcast Corp. Ratings Are Unaffected By The Announcement That NBCUniversal Media LLC Has Agreed To Buy DreamWorks

NEW YORK (Standard&Poor's) April 28, 2016--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that there is no impact on the ratings on Comcast Corp. (A-/Stable/A-2) following the announcement that NBCUniversal Media LLC (NBCU), a subsidiary of Comcast, has agreed to purchase DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc., an independent film studio that specializes in computer-generated animated films, for approximately $3.8 billion in cash. We expect the transaction to be slightly leveraging given DreamWorks' weak EBITDA and negative free cash flow for 2015 (which we expect to improve modestly in 2016), with pro forma adjusted debt to EBITDA at Comcast increasing to 2.4x from 2.2x as of Dec. 31, 2015 assuming the acquisition is fully debt-financed. From a business profile standpoint we

...NEW YORK (Standard & Poor's) April 28, 2016--Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said today that there is no impact on the ratings on Comcast Corp. (A-/Stable/A-2) following the announcement that NBCUniversal Media LLC (NBCU), a subsidiary of Comcast, has agreed to purchase DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc., an independent film studio that specializes in computer-generated animated films, for approximately $3.8 billion in cash. We expect the transaction to be slightly leveraging given DreamWorks' weak EBITDA and negative free cash flow for 2015 (which we expect to improve modestly in 2016), with pro forma adjusted debt to EBITDA at Comcast increasing to 2.4x from 2.2x as of Dec. 31, 2015 assuming the acquisition is fully debt-financed. From a business profile standpoint we view the transaction positively, as it adds a strong film brand and small library of intellectual property that can be leveraged across other NBCU business units, a key rationale for the acquisition in our view. In addition,...

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