...August 15, 2024 We expect leverage will remain elevated, leading to limited headroom in the stand-alone rating. We believe S&P Global Ratings-adjusted leverage will stay elevated at 4.8x-5.0x in 2024- 2026, from 4.8x in 2023 and 4.2x in 2022. Telenet raised a new term loan of 890 million in 2023 and used part of its free operating cash flow (FOCF) to fund a 1.19 billion dividend payment to sole parent Liberty Global. This allowed Liberty Global to pay down an acquisition debt used to purchase the remaining Telenet shares. Our base-case scenario assumes flat to modest growth in earnings, and adjusted debt to remain flat, leading to adjusted debt to EBITDA close to our downside threshold of 5.0x for the next few years. We believe the company's stand-alone rating has limited headroom to absorb weaker-than-expected operating performance or further debt issuances. That said, our rating on Telenet is linked to our rating on Liberty Global PLC (##- /Stable/--) as long as we continue to view Telenet...
