NEW YORK (Standard&Poor's) Sept. 8, 2010--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that Tyco International Ltd.'s announcement that its board of directors has authorized the repurchase of up to $1 billion of common stock does not affect the company's ratings or outlook. Although share repurchase activity has been somewhat more aggressive than what we had expected over the past six months, this has been funded by consistent free cash flow generation (we expect around $1 billion this year) and sizeable excess cash reserves. Tyco's debt levels and financial leverage have remained steady and at level consistent with our expectations for the 'A-' rating, including adjusted total debt to EBITDA of about 2.0x and funds from operations to total
