SAN FRANCISCO (Standard&Poor's) Feb. 8, 2012--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services lowered its rating to 'BBB-' from 'BBB+' on Ward County, N.D.'s series 1996B and series 2006 revenue bonds, issued for the Trinity Obligated Group (Trinity Health). At the same time, Standard&Poor's removed the rating from CreditWatch with negative implications, where it had been placed due to insufficient information, and assigned a stable outlook to the rating. "The downgrade reflects our view of Trinity Health's weakened overall financial profile, including liquidity that remains very thin for the current rating," said Standard&Poor's credit analyst Robert Dobbins. Furthermore, fiscal 2011 operations were weak, in our opinion, even after taking into consideration the impact of nonrecurring items. We
