...- French building materials producer and distributor Saint-Gobain has sustained strong performance over the past two years, supported by strong price and cost management, as well as resilient long-term demand on the back of successful ongoing portfolio realignments, notably toward building decarbonization needs. - We expect group EBITDA to reduce this year from a record high 7.1 billion in 2022, on softer volumes in developed markets and slower price increases ahead of moderated inflationary pressure, but to remain solid in the context of the business cycle. - We anticipate that ongoing sizable investments, including for growth capital expenditure (capex) and potential acquisitions, as well as generous shareholder remuneration, will steer leverage toward the 1.5-2.0x net debt to EBITDA target, from 1.2x in 2022. This points to credit metrics comfortably in line with our '###+' rating, with an adequate track record of operating under that favorable level of leverage. - We therefore raised...
