We believe severely weakening macroeconomic conditions stemming from COVID-19 will likely drive much lower demand for Granite U.S. Holding Corp.'s end markets in the near term. Therefore, we believe leverage could increase materially to the point where the covenant compliance could become an issue. As a result, we are lowering our issuer credit rating on Granite to 'CCC+' from 'B'. At the same time, we are lowering our issue-level rating on the company's senior secured first-lien facilities to 'CCC+' from 'B' and our issue-level rating on its unsecured debt to 'CCC' from 'B-'. The negative outlook reflects increased risk that the company's operating performance could weaken further than we expect, resulting in stretched credit metrics and breaching of the financial
