U.S.–based WKI Holding Co. Inc. is being acquired by Cornell Capital LLC, a private equity firm. The transaction is being funded with a proposed new $200 million term loan B and $250 million of new sponsor common equity, leading to pro forma leverage of 3.5x for the 12 months ended Dec. 31, 2016, which is a reduction from the current leverage of roughly 4x for the same period. As a result of the lower debt leverage and our expectation that the company will manage debt leverage below 5x, we are raising our corporate credit rating on WKI to 'B+' from 'B'. We are assigning a 'BB-' issue-level rating and '2' recovery rating to the proposed $200 million senior secured term
