Allspring Buyer LLC's (Allspring) lowered its leverage over 2024 to 4.4x at year end. We believe improvements in revenue and margins will help sustain leverage at 4.0x-5.0x in 2025 and 2026. Therefore, we revised our outlook to stable from negative and affirmed our 'BB-' long-term issuer credit and issue ratings on the company and its debt. The stable outlook reflects our expectation that Allspring will operate with leverage of 4.0x-5.0x over the next 12 months, while maintaining its assets under advisement (AUA) and investment performance. Allspring ended 2024 with leverage of 4.4x, down from 6.3x at year-end 2023, due to both revenue and margin improvements. Revenue grew 7% in 2024 due to strong fixed-income inflows and market appreciation. At the
