...NEW YORK (Standard & Poor's) Jan. 12, 2015--Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said today it assigned its '###+' issue rating to St. Paul, Minn.-based Ecolab Inc.'s proposed $600 million senior unsecured notes. Ecolab is proposing to issue $300 million senior unsecured floating-rate notes due in 2018 and $300 million fixed-rate notes due in 2020 mainly to pay down debt, including commercial paper (CP). In December 2014, Ecolab also upsized its existing unrated credit facility by $500 million to $2 billion and extended the maturity by three years to December 2019. In conjunction with that amendment, Ecolab raised the maximum CP amount that it may issue under its U.S. CP program to $2 billion from $1.5 billion. Ecolab intends to use its credit facility primarily to backstop its CP program. The company had roughly $6.8 billion of reported debt outstanding as of Sept. 30, 2014. The ratings on Ecolab, including the '###+' corporate credit rating, and positive rating outlook remain unchanged....
