We believe U.S.-based Altria Group Inc. will continue to report solid profitability and successfully manage litigation risk in the evolving regulatory environment. For the fiscal year ended 2015, the company well exceeded our forecast for EBITDA and cash flow. As a result, leverage was below 2x. We forecast the company will maintain these strong financial measures despite our expectation for cigarette volume trends to return to historical rates of decline. We also expect the tobacco holding company to maintain its large beer industry investment for at least the next five years, providing substantial financial flexibility to address potential meaningfully unfavorable litigation outcomes. We are raising all of our ratings on the company, including our long-term corporate credit rating to 'A-'
