...FRANKFURT (S&P Global Ratings) Aug. 3, 2018--S&P Global Ratings said today that its ratings and outlook on Belgian cable TV operator Telenet Group Holding N.V. (Telenet; ##-/Stable/--) are not affected by the company's announcement that it will pay out a special dividend of 600 million in October. The dividend, which comes on top of Telenet's recent increase in its share-buyback program to 300 million until mid-2019, would take its S&P Global Ratings-adjusted debt to EBITDA to 4.5x-4.7x in 2018 as per our most recent base case, slightly up from 4.5x at the end of 2017. This is within the range for the current rating. In our previous forecast, we had expected the company to return up to 800 million to shareholders in 2018 through special dividends or share buybacks. However, we note that if this level of dividends were to become recurring, this would take credit metrics close to the downside triggers of 5.0x adjusted debt to EBITDA and 5% free operating cash flow to debt for the current...
