Standard&Poor's Ratings Services bases its ratings on midstream energy company Enterprise Products Partners L.P. (EPD) and its operating subsidiary Enterprise Products Operating LLC on the companies' strong business risk profiles and significant financial risk profiles. Key credit strengths include EPD's operating scale, business-line diversity, and high proportion of fee-based revenues. EPD's significant financial leverage and aggressive growth strategy partially offset these strengths. As a master limited partnership (MLP), EPD distributes a high proportion of free cash flow (after maintenance capital expenditures) to unit holders each quarter and generally relies on the capital markets to fund growth capital expenditures. On Feb. 23, 2011, EPD announced a proposal to acquire Duncan Energy Partners L.P. (DEP). EPD intends to fund the
