...New York (S&P Global Ratings) March 28, 2017--S&P Global Ratings said today that Darden Restaurants Inc.'s (###/Stable/--) acquisition of Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen (Cheddar's Restaurant Holdings Corp.; B/Stable/--), a value-oriented casual dining restaurant, for cash, has no immediate impact on the rating on the diversified U.S. restaurant operator. We believe the $780 million acquisition price is relatively small compared with the company's overall size and the expected incremental debt will have limited impact on the company's credit metrics, given that Darden is funding the acquisition partly with cash. The acquisition, while small, could enhance the company's brand diversity and increase presence in the value-driven casual-dining restaurant segment, but we expect the integration and potential performance improvement to only gather momentum over time. In addition, we do not expect the acquisition to alter our view of the company's financial risk and we continue to expect adjusted leverage...
