We anticipate restaurant company Brinker International Inc.'s accelerating sales momentum and improving margins will continue to support its efforts to reduce its leverage. We now forecast the company's adjusted leverage will improve below 4x this calendar year and EBITDA interest coverage will exceed 4x. Therefore, we raised our issuer credit rating on Brinker to 'BB-' from 'B+' and our issue-level rating on its senior unsecured notes due 2023 to 'B' from 'B-'. At the same time, we revised our recovery rating on the company's senior notes due 2024 to '3' from '2'. Our 'BB-' issue-level rating on the notes is unchanged. The stable outlook reflects our expectation that Brinker's credit metrics will improve this year as it restores the health
