Research Update: Cleco Corporate Holdings LLC And Cleco Power LLC Outlooks Revised To Negative On Weak Financial Measures, ICRs Affirmed

We anticipate that Cleco Corporate Holdings LLC's (Cleco Corp.) and Cleco Power LLC's (Cleco Power) financial measures will be weaker than we previously expected because of the delayed recovery of most of the costs related to 2020 hurricanes along with our expectation for additional costs related to Hurricane Ida. Specifically, we forecast Cleco Corp.'s adjusted funds from operations (FFO) to debt will be in the 11%-14% range over the near term. Therefore, we revised our outlooks on Cleco Corp. and Cleco Power to negative from stable. At the same time, we affirmed our 'BBB-' issuer credit rating on Cleco Corp. and our 'BBB+' issuer credit rating on Cleco Power. The negative outlooks reflect our expectation that Cleco Corp.'s financial measures

...- We anticipate that Cleco Corporate Holdings LLC's (Cleco Corp.) and Cleco Power LLC's (Cleco Power) financial measures will be weaker than we previously expected because of the delayed recovery of most of the costs related to 2020 hurricanes along with our expectation for additional costs related to Hurricane Ida. Specifically, we forecast Cleco Corp.'s adjusted funds from operations (FFO) to debt will be in the 11%-14% range over the near term. - Therefore, we revised our outlooks on Cleco Corp. and Cleco Power to negative from stable. - At the same time, we affirmed our '###-' issuer credit rating on Cleco Corp. and our '###+' issuer credit rating on Cleco Power. - The negative outlooks reflect our expectation that Cleco Corp.'s financial measures will remain weak until Cleco Power receives authorization from the Louisiana Public Service Commission (PSC) to issue storm restoration financing. We expect Cleco Corp.'s financial measures to be weaker due to its mostly unrecovered storm...

Research Update