...New York (Standard & Poor's) Dec. 17, 2014--Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said today that we expect Darden Restaurants Inc.'s operating performance and credit metrics to remain in line with our previous projection. The company reported modestly positive same-store sales, including for its key brand Olive Garden in the latest fiscal quarter and slightly narrowed expectations for full-year earnings. Overall, our ratings on Darden are unaffected by this news. At this point, we still believe the new board will avoid abrupt departures from its exiting financial policy. However, we expect business strategies will eventually shift and we will continue to closely monitor the company. We could lower the ratings if it appears that the new board adopts more aggressive financial and/or operating strategies in the near term, resulting in meaningfully weakened product/concept diversity or higher leverage. We could also lower the ratings if Darden's sales and profitability underperforms our expectation...
