U.S.-based waste-to-energy (WtE) provider Covanta Holding Corp. has maintained solid operational performance following its acquisition by EQT Infrastructure (EQT), albeit with higher leverage, due to slower-than-expected deleveraging. We continue to view EQT's ownership favorably and, combined with the company's strong recent operating trends, we forecast Covanta could deleverage over the next few years, although not as fast as previously expected. We revised our outlook on Covanta to stable from positive and affirmed our 'B+' issuer credit rating (ICR). At the same time, we affirmed our 'BB' issue-level rating on the company's senior secured debt and our 'B' issue-level rating on Covanta's unsecured debt. The '1' recovery rating on the company's senior secured debt is unchanged and indicates our expectation for
