On Sept. 9, 2005, Standard&Poor's Ratings Services placed its 'A+' long-term corporate credit and senior unsecured debt ratings on Minneapolis, Minn.-based Cargill Inc. and related entities on CreditWatch with negative implications. Negative implications means that the ratings could be affirmed or lowered after Standard&Poor's completes its review. At the same time, Standard&Poor's affirmed its 'A-1' short-term corporate credit and commercial paper ratings on Cargill. The CreditWatch placement follows Degussa AG's (BBB+/Negative/A-2) announcement that it has an agreement to sell its food ingredient operations to Cargill for $670 million. The transaction is contingent on the approval of Degussa's Supervisory Board and regulatory authorities. The transaction should help Cargill strengthen its existing specialty ingredients and ingredient
