...- As part of its merger with Suez, Veolia Environnement SA (Veolia) has sold assets excluded from the merger perimeter (called "New Suez") to a consortium of financial investors for about 10.4 billion, which is above our initial expectation. This marks a key milestone in the merger and should allow Veolia to sustain its balance sheet despite the 22.7 billion acquisition of Suez over 2020-2022. - We expect the acquisition will improve Veolia's business risk profile within our strong category, given Suez's highly complementary portfolio in terms of geographies and businesses. The consolidation will also boost Veolia's scale, with reported EBITDA for the combined entity increasing to 6.3 billion by 2023 according to our estimates from about 3.6 billion reported in 2020. - We affirmed our '###/A-2' long- and short-term issuer credit ratings on Veolia. - The stable outlook indicates our expectation that Veolia will successfully integrate Suez while maintaining sufficient rating headroom, with...
