NEW YORK (Standard&Poor's) Nov. 10, 2014--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services today assigned its 'BBB' issue-level rating to Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc.'s proposed tranches of senior unsecured notes. The company plans to use the proceeds, along with the recently issued US$8 billion denominated senior unsecured notes to fund cash consideration for the second step of the Alliance Boots acquisition, refinance substantially all Alliance Boots' long-term debt, and retire Walgreen's 2015 debt maturity. We expect the acquisition of the remaining 55% of Alliance Boots will close in the first quarter of 2015. Based on our projected performance for the company, we now calculate that pro forma total debt to EBITDA could reach around 4x at fiscal year-end August 2015. Given
