U.S.-based software provider Salesforce Inc. announced meetings with fixed income credit investors. We expect a debt transaction could follow, though this is uncertain. The company recently announced a $50 billion share repurchase authorization and made public statements suggesting its debt to EBITDA is low. While Salesforce has some debt capacity at the current rating, we think leverage could rise above our 2x downgrade trigger over the next 12-24 months. We revised the outlook to negative from stable based on our expectation that leverage could rise to over 2x in the next one to two years if the company accelerates share repurchases. Although we expect EBITDA will expand and believe Salesforce has strong cash-flow generation to fund some shareholder returns, aggressive
