PARIS (Standard&Poor's) March 8, 2004--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today it placed its 'A/A-1' ratings on France-based Compagnie de Saint-Gobain S.A. (Saint-Gobain) on CreditWatch with negative implications. The CreditWatch placement follows Saint-Gobain's announcement that it will acquire Dahl International AB (Dahl; not rated), a leading specialty distributor in Scandinavia, for an enterprise value of €686 million ($848 million). The acquisition will be financed by a mix of available cash and Dahl's assumed debt. "Given that the current ratings on Saint-Gobain assume a further strengthening of the group's credit measures in the future, we are concerned that the proposed acquisition will slow the expected improvement in Saint-Gobain's financial profile," said Standard&Poor's credit analyst Xavier Buffon. Standard
