...NEW YORK (Standard & Poor's) July 28, 2015--Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said today that its ratings and outlook on Honeywell International Inc. (A/Stable/A-1) are unaffected by the company's announcement that it has agreed to acquire German-based Elster Group GmbH for ú3.3 billion from Melrose Industries PLC. Elster is a global provider of gas, electricity, and water meters and related communications, networking, and software. We believe that the acquisition of Elster, which the company estimates generates roughly $1.8 billion in revenue at profit margins that we would consider above average for the manufacturing sector, will support our "strong" business risk assessment on Honeywell because the Elster platform solidifies Honeywell's existing metering business and provides it with the opportunity to cross-sell its existing technologies. We expect that Honeywell's financial risk profile will remain "modest", as defined in our criteria. Pro forma for the acquisition, we estimate that...
