Ecolab Inc.'s operating performance has improved and we are revising our assessment of the company's financial risk profile to intermediate from significant based on our expectation that debt to EBITDA will remain under 3x, coupled with weighted averaged funds from operations to debt of about 30%. We are raising our corporate credit rating on Ecolab and our issue-level rating on the company's senior unsecured debt to 'A-' from 'BBB+'. The company's short-term rating remains 'A-2.' We expect that our assessment of Ecolab's liquidity and business risk profile will remain strong. The outlook is stable, reflecting our expectation that credit measures will remain in line with the intermediate financial risk profile over the next two years. On March 28, 2016, Standard
