PARIS (Standard&Poor's) July 27, 2007--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that its ratings and outlook on France-based engineered materials manufacturer and distributor Compagnie de Saint-Gobain (BBB+/Negative/A-2) remain unchanged following Saint-Gobain's announcement of a heavy €650 million provision related to the European Commission's investigation into alleged anticompetitive practices in the glass market. While the Commission has so far not named an amount, any future payment of an antitrust fine would negatively impact the group's financial profile. That said, we still expect the group to further restore its financial profile to bring credit metrics in line with the rating category, with an adjusted ratio of funds from operations to debt in the 25%-30% range on a sustained basis in
