NEW YORK (Standard&Poor's) May 10, 2007--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that it raised its corporate credit rating on graphite electrode manufacturer GrafTech International Ltd. to 'B+' from 'B'. In addition, we raised the rating on the company's $215 million senior secured revolving credit facility to 'BB-' from 'B+' and affirmed the '1' recovery rating on the facility (indicating the expectation of full recovery of principal in the event of a payment default). Also, Standard&Poor's raised its rating on Graftech's convertible notes to 'B-' from 'CCC+'. Lastly, we affirmed the 'B-' rating on GrafTech's $550 million senior secured notes and assigned them a '5' recovery rating (indicating an expectation of negligible (0%-25%) recovery of principal).
