Carnival Corp. Upgraded To 'A-' On Improved Credit Measures And Management And Governance Assessment; Outlook Stable

Global cruise operator Carnival Corp.'s continued good operating performance and our forecast for continued revenue and EBITDA growth in 2017 will likely support credit measures remaining inside of our upgrade thresholds, notwithstanding our belief that Carnival will likely continue to return capital to shareholders. Additionally, we believe Carnival has put in place sufficient risk mitigation measures over the past few years to lessen the likelihood of damaging incidents on ships and reduce their severity in the event they happen, which should limit cash flow volatility resulting from any future possible ship incidents. As a result, we are upwardly revising our management and governance assessment to satisfactory from fair. We are raising our corporate credit rating and senior unsecured ratings on

...+ Global cruise operator Carnival Corp.'s continued good operating performance and our forecast for continued revenue and EBITDA growth in 2017 will likely support credit measures remaining inside of our upgrade thresholds, notwithstanding our belief that Carnival will likely continue to return capital to shareholders. + Additionally, we believe Carnival has put in place sufficient risk mitigation measures over the past few years to lessen the likelihood of damaging incidents on ships and reduce their severity in the event they happen, which should limit cash flow volatility resulting from any future possible ship incidents. As a result, we are upwardly revising our management and governance assessment to satisfactory from fair. + We are raising our corporate credit rating and senior unsecured ratings on Carnival to 'A-' from '###+', and removing them from CreditWatch. + The stable rating outlook reflects our belief that good anticipated cruise demand and pricing will allow Carnival to...

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