Ireland-based security products producer Allegion PLC plans to issue $300 million of senior unsecured notes to reduce borrowings under its revolving credit facility previously used to finance three recently announced acquisitions. As a result of the partially debt-financed acquisitions, pro forma debt leverage will increase to about 3.5x. We are assigning our 'BB+' issue-level rating to Allegion's new notes. Our existing ratings, including our 'BB+' corporate credit rating and our 'BBB' senior secured term loan and 'BB+' senior unsecured note ratings are unchanged. The outlook is positive, reflecting our view that Allegion will reduce leverage to about 3.2x by year-end 2015 (after taking into account surplus cash balances as well as operating leases and pension liabilities) with further reductions to
