...NEW YORK (Standard & Poor's) Feb. 22, 2016--Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said today that it assigned its 'A+' issue-level ratings to UnitedHealth Group Inc.'s (UNH) proposed issuance of approximately $2.0 billion-$2.5 billion senior unsecured notes. The notes will be issued in four parts: a mix of floating-rate, three-year and fixed-rate three-, five-, and 10-year maturities. We expect the company to use debt proceeds to repay commercial paper borrowings ($4 billion outstanding as of Dec. 31, 2015) and its 5.375% notes due March 15, 2016 ($601 million principal amount outstanding). The transaction will not affect UNH's credit metrics meaningfully. UNH's adjusted financial leverage (49.9% as of Dec. 31, 2015) is higher than historical levels because of its July 2015 debt-funded acquisition of Catamaran Corp. However, we expect the company to delever to less than 40% by year-end 2017. Adjusted EBITDA fixed-charge coverage remains strong (13.5x in 2015) and we expect it to remain above...
