...+ On Sept. 4, 2018, Loblaw Cos. Ltd. announced its plan to spin out its 61.6% interest in Choice Properties Real Estate Investment Trust (Choice REIT) to its shareholders. At the same time, George Weston Ltd. (GWL; Loblaw's parent company) would give Loblaw's public shareholders GWL shares in exchange for its interest in Choice REIT. + At the close of transaction, GWL will own direct controlling interest in Loblaw (about 50%) and Choice REIT (65.4%), while GWL's public ownership will be about 47%. + Following the transaction, we expect Loblaw's adjusted debt-to-EBITDA to improve to about 2.5x; we are revising our stand-alone credit profile on Loblaw to '###+' from '###'. + However, Loblaw's group status is unchanged at core and equal to our '###' group credit profile on GWL. + As a result, we are affirming our ratings on Loblaw, including our '###' long-term issuer credit rating on the company. + The stable outlook reflects our expectation that consolidated adjusted debt-to-EBITDA will...
