Downgrading for Seat Pagine Gialle: Moody's downgrades its rating of the group from Ca to C and announces that it will withdraw all ratings on the company. The agency also reduced the judgment on the probability of default to D-Pd after the decision of the Court of Turin to postpone the hearing of the creditors to 15 July 2014, initially scheduled for 30 January 2014. According to Moody's, in fact, there is no 'is certain that the new date will be respected.
Again from Ca to C the ratings of the agency on the 750 million euro senior secured bond and on the 65 million euro senior secured stub bond passed. The downgrade to C reflects Moody's thinking: in view of the poor performance of the company that produces the yellow pages, the agency believes that the restructuring will translate into losses for creditors of more than 70%.
Seat Pagine Gialle in fact closed the first nine months of the year with a net loss of 113,1 million, an ebitda of 81,7 million, down 57,2% compared to the first nine months of last year, and a net financial debt of 1.433,6 million euros. For the end of the year, the ebitda is estimated to exceed 90 million.
Given therefore the uncertainty on the timing to complete the restructuring through the Italian courts, Moody's will withdraw all the ratings on Seat. The news strongly affects the Seat share in Piazza Affari which loses 4,35%.
