Activist Investor Efforts Increasingly Lower Credit Ratings

Here’s another explanation for finance chiefs to be cautious of shareholder activist campaigns: increasingly, they direct to downgrades or other destructive credit history rating actions, in particular for providers with now weak credit history ratings.

To be crystal clear, most activist campaigns do not direct to adjustments in credit history ratings, credit history outlooks, or the putting of the enterprise on “credit observe.” But according to a report launched by S&P World wide Rankings on Wednesday, when campaigns do direct to ratings actions, the bulk of the time these actions are destructive. 20-a single of the 26 rating actions induced by trader campaigns in 2020 had been destructive, up from only seven 5 decades back.

Activists specific largely financial investment-grade providers in 2020. But providers in the “BBB” rating types, the tiers just higher than “junk,” observed the biggest selection of rating actions and downgrades.

Shareholder activist M&A or crack-up campaigns continued to be the greatest contributor to rating adjustments between nonfinancial and fiscal issuers, the agency mentioned, followed by campaigns concentrating on cash constructions.

“The most normal route to a [rating downgrade relevant to M&A] was overleveraging all through a merger or a crack-up that adversely impacted the company’s fiscal possibility profile,” S&P mentioned.

For instance, S&P lowered Tech Facts into junk territory past June after Apollo Management’s takeover offer proposed issuing an extra $five.five billion in debt. That “pushed the [company’s] pro forma adjusted leverage beneath the former draw back result in,” S&P mentioned. “Additionally, we hope[ed] the company’s fiscal procedures to become much more aggressive less than the new possession.”

Activist-led cash framework adjustments are also frequently credit history-destructive, S&P mentioned, for the reason that activists frequently demand from customers much more shareholder-friendly fiscal procedures.

As an instance, S&P pointed to an incident past November when the minority shareholders of a French searching middle owner campaigned for rejecting a cash maximize meant to reduced general leverage. When the maximize was voted down, S&P estimated that the enterprise wouldn’t be able to sustain its leverage ratios. S&P downgraded the enterprise a single notch.

Shareholder activism in Europe led to as several downgrades as it did in the U.S. in 2020. The increase in campaigns “was largely driven by the even now expanding belief by substantial U.S. activist buyers that European corporates are ripe for M&A-driven worth development,” S&P mentioned.

activist shareholderscredit rating, S&P