MELBOURNE (Standard&Poor's) May 27, 2011--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that it had maintained its 'A' long-term and 'A-1' short-term ratings on Telecom Corp. of New Zealand Ltd. (TCNZ) on CreditWatch with negative implications, where they were initially placed on Aug. 4, 2010. This CreditWatch update follows TCNZ's announcement on May 24, 2011 that it had reached an agreement with Crown Fibre Holdings Ltd. (CFH) that would allow TCNZ's access network business, Chorus, to build and own at least 70% of the proposed "ultra fast broadband" (UFB) network in New Zealand. CFH is the government-owned entity established to facilitate the UFB process. "Importantly for creditors, the agreement with CFH would necessitate a full demerger of TCNZ's access
