U.S.-based commercial lender Jefferies Finance will reduce its leverage and buttress its liquidity by issuing $400 million of long-term unsecured notes and drawing on $250 million of equity from its joint-venture owners. As a result, we are revising our outlook on the 'B+' issuer credit rating on the company to positive from stable. We are also affirming the rating. At the same time, we are assigning a 'B' issue level rating to the company's proposed $400 million unsecured note issuance. The outlook is positive. We expect the company's debt-to-equity ratio to be about 4.5x-5.0x over the next two years, which is lower than the 5x-6x we previously expected. NEW YORK (Standard&Poor's) Oct. 7, 2014--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services
