Aretec Group Inc. announced that it has entered into a definitive merger agreement to acquire Avantax Inc., a tax-focused wealth management independent broker dealer, for $1.2 billion. We expect that Aretec's mostly debt-financed acquisition of Avantax could weaken credit metrics, although the final capital structure and debt terms have not yet been determined. Given the uncertainty around the capital structure and resulting credit metrics, we are placing our issuer credit and issue-level ratings on Aretec on CreditWatch with negative implications. The CreditWatch negative placement reflects the possibility that we could lower our ratings on Aretec in the coming months if we don't believe it could maintain S&P-adjusted debt-to-EBITDA ratio below 6x or interest coverage above 2x. On Sept. 14, 2023,
