NEW YORK (Standard&Poor's) March 3, 2009--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today it lowered its ratings on Marysville, Ohio-based The Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. to 'BB-' from 'BB'. The outlook is stable. Scotts had about $1.1 billion in reported debt outstanding at Dec. 27, 2008. "The downgrade reflects our belief that credit measures over the next year will not meet our prior expectations to maintain the 'BB' rating," said Standard&Poor's credit analyst Christopher Johnson, "including adjusted average debt to EBITDA of about 3.5x." We expect Scotts' EBITDA margin improvement to be constrained by some pricing pressure from consumer trade-down and the company's elevated input costs, which are roughly 70% hedged for the coming year at higher costs,
