DBRS Assigns BBB Rating to Bell Aliant’s $400 Million Senior Unsecured Debt Issuance, Stable Trend

DBRS has today assigned a rating of BBB with a Stable trend to Bell Aliant Regional Communications, Limited Partnership’s (Bell Aliant or the Company) $400 million Senior Unsecured Debt issuance (the Notes), which was announced on June 7, 2013. The seven-year Notes will mature on June 12, 2020, carrying a coupon rate of 3.54%.

The Notes will be issued by way of prospectus supplement to the Company’s short-form base shelf prospectus dated January 16, 2012, and reference the trust indenture dated September 14, 2006. The Notes will be direct, unsecured obligations of Bell Aliant and, at their date of issue, will rank pari passu with all other current and future unsecured and unsubordinated indebtedness of Bell Aliant.

The Company intends to use all or substantially all of the net proceeds to redeem the 4.95% medium-term notes due February 26, 2014, and for general corporate purposes.

Note:
All figures are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted.

The applicable methodology is Rating the Communications Industry (April 2011), which can be found on our website under Methodologies.