Standard&Poor's Ratings Services lowered its rating to 'BBB-' from 'BBB+' on Ward County, N.D.'s series 1996B and series 2006 revenue bonds, issued for the Trinity Obligated Group (Trinity Health). At the same time, Standard&Poor's removed the rating from CreditWatch with negative implications, where it had been placed due to insufficient information, and assigned a stable outlook to the rating. The downgrade reflects our view of Trinity Health's weakened overall financial profile, including liquidity that remains very thin for the current rating. Furthermore, fiscal 2011 operations were weak, in our opinion, even after taking into consideration the impact of nonrecurring items. We also no longer view fiscal 2010 operations as favorably because of the information recently disclosed
