Research Update: Marfrig Global Foods Upgraded To 'BB-' From 'B+' On Completion Of M&A Transactions, Outlook Stable

Brazil-based beef processor, Marfrig, has successfully completed the acquisition of the control of the U.S. beef processor National Beef for about $1 billion and the sale of its U.S. poultry processor KeyStone for $2.2 billion. Marfrig will use the majority of proceeds to pay down debt, leading to a significant improvement in the company's leverage. We're raising our global scale issuer and issue-level ratings on Marfrig to 'BB-' from 'B+' and our national scale issuer credit rating to 'brAA+' from 'brAA'. We're also removing them from the CreditWatch listing The stable outlook reflects our expectation that Marfrig will focus on the improvement of its operating performance in Brazil by reducing working capital needs while it integrates National Beef, and on

...(Editor's Note: In the article originally published on Aug. 20, 2018, due to an error, one issue-level rating on Marfrig Holdings Europe B.V. was omitted from our rating action. We republished the article on April 25, 2019, and corrected the issue-level rating in our system.)...

Research Update