...NEW YORK (S&P Global Ratings) June 29, 2018--S&P Global Ratings said today that its ratings and outlook on Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (###+/Stable/A-2) are unaffected by the company's proposed acquisition of Roper Technologies Inc.'s electron microscope software unit Gatan Inc. for $925 million in cash. Our '###+' corporate credit rating on Thermo Fisher reflects our expectation that the company will continue generating strong discretionary cash flow of around $3.5 billion per year, which will enable it to maintain leverage in the 3x-4x range while remaining acquisitive. In addition, Thermo Fisher has created additional debt capacity within the rating by abstaining from any midsize or large transactions over the past several quarters and allocating a significant part of its internally generated cash flow to reducing leverage. In our view, the Gatan acquisition uses only a small portion of Thermo Fisher's incremental debt capacity, which we had previously estimated to be at least $8 billion...
