EP BCo, Issuer Of Port Terminal Operator Euroports, Rated 'BB-'; Outlook Stable

Special purpose company, EP BCo S.A. (EP), has been set up to raise a senior term loan and senior revolving and second-lien facilities to finance the proposed acquisition of port operator group, Euroports. Euroports has a satisfactory competitive position as a diversified port terminal operator, but with relatively high leverage and weaker profitability than other infrastructure transportation companies, such as the port owners. We assess EP as a highly strategic subsidiary of the Monaco Resources Group (MRG). We believe EP is partially protected from a potential intervention and/or deterioration of MRG's credit quality due to the significant minority shareholding by the Belgium sovereign funds PMV and FPIM. As a result, we could rate EP up to two notches higher than

...May 13, 2019 - Special purpose company, EP BCo S.A. (EP), has been set up to raise a senior term loan and senior revolving and second-lien facilities to finance the proposed acquisition of port operator group, Euroports. - Euroports has a satisfactory competitive position as a diversified port terminal operator, but with relatively high leverage and weaker profitability than other infrastructure transportation companies, such as the port owners. - We assess EP as a highly strategic subsidiary of the Monaco Resources Group (MRG). We believe EP is partially protected from a potential intervention and/or deterioration of MRG's credit quality due to the significant minority shareholding by the Belgium sovereign funds PMV and FPIM. - As a result, we could rate EP up to two notches higher than our assessment of MRG's credit quality. We are therefore assigning our '##-' long-term issuer credit rating to EP and our '##-' issue and '3' recovery ratings to EP's proposed seven-year 315 million term...

Ratings Action