MELBOURNE (Standard&Poor's) Aug. 31, 2011--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that it had assigned its 'BBB' preliminary long-term issuer credit rating to New Zealand-based telecommunications company Chorus Ltd. (Chorus). The outlook on the rating is stable. Chorus is the access network business of Telecom Corp. of New Zealand Ltd. (TCNZ; A/Watch Neg/A-1), which is planning to demerge the Chorus business and related infrastructure in late 2011, subject to shareholder and various other approvals. The ratings on TCNZ remain on CreditWatch with negative implications, where they were initially placed on Aug. 4, 2010; we expect to lower the long-term ratings on TCNZ by one notch to 'A-' and the short-term rating to 'A-2' if the demerger proceeds as
