...+ Mexico-based petrochemical producer Alpek recently acquired Brazilian assets Petroqufmica Suape and Citepe (PQS) and announced a joint venture (JV) for the acquisition of the Corpus Christi plant. With these acquisitions and the bankruptcy of one of its largest customers last year, we expect leverage to rise temporarily in 2018 to slightly above 3.0x. However, better performance of polyester margins and the sale of Alpek's cogeneration plants sometime in 2018 or 2019 should bring leverage below 3.0x in 2019. + We're affirming our '###-' corporate credit and issue-level ratings on Alpek. + The stable outlook reflects our expectation that the company will keep its average debt to EBITDA ratio below 3.0x and funds from operations (FFO) to debt above 30% as a result of higher prices and margins in the polyester segment, and from additional volumes from the acquisition of PQS....
