While Carpenter Technology Corp. has been improving its credit metrics, they've remained weak for the rating for two consecutive years in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The pace of the company's post-COVID recovery highlights its reliance on the aerospace industry and challenging competitive position as a small player in this market. Therefore, we lowered our issuer credit rating on Carpenter to 'BB' from 'BB+'. At the same time, we lowered our issue-level rating on the company's unsecured notes to 'BB' from 'BB+'. Our '3' recovery rating on the notes remains unchanged. The stable outlook reflects our expectation that Carpenter's aerospace business will continue to recover, supported by its robust backlogs, which will cause its leverage to improve to the
