United Natural Foods Inc. Assigned 'B+' Rating And Stable Outlook On Acquiring SUPERVALU Inc.; Term Loan Rated 'B+'

United Natural Foods Inc. (UNFI), a U.S. based wholesale distributor, is acquiring SUPERVALU Inc. (SVU), adding a material amount of debt to a company that has historically been run with (and we expect will return to) a conservative financial policy. As a result, we are assigning a 'B+' issuer credit rating and stable outlook to UNFI. We are also assigning our 'B+' issue-level rating and '3' recovery rating to the company's proposed $2.05 billion senior secured term loan. The stable outlook reflects our expectation that UNFI will achieve expected synergies, benefits, and deleveraging from this target despite the weakness in the lower-margin core SVU business and elevated logistics costs industry-wide. NEW YORK (S&P Global Ratings) Oct. 2, 2018--S&P Global Ratings

...+ United Natural Foods Inc. (UNFI), a U.S. based wholesale distributor, is acquiring SUPERVALU Inc. (SVU), adding a material amount of debt to a company that has historically been run with (and we expect will return to) a conservative financial policy. + As a result, we are assigning a 'B+' issuer credit rating and stable outlook to UNFI. + We are also assigning our 'B+' issue-level rating and '3' recovery rating to the company's proposed $2.05 billion senior secured term loan. + The stable outlook reflects our expectation that UNFI will achieve expected synergies, benefits, and deleveraging from this target despite the weakness in the lower-margin core SVU business and elevated logistics costs industry-wide. NEW YORK (S&P Global Ratings) Oct. 2, 2018--S&P Global Ratings today assigned its 'B+' issuer credit rating to UNFI. The outlook is stable. We also assigned our 'B+' issue-level and '3' recovery rating to the company's proposed senior secured term loan B due in 2025. The '3' recovery...

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