Moody’s Investors Service raised HeidelbergCement’s Corporate Family rating to ‘Ba1’ from ‘Ba2‘ and the senior unsecured long term rating to ‘Ba2’ from ‘Ba3’.
As rationale, Moody’s highlighted the company’s sound performance in Q1 and the agency’s expectation that HeidelbergCement will continue to perform well in 2011 leading to further deleveraging and improved credit metrics.
“We are very happy that the solid performance in Q1 has prompted another rating upgrade,” says Dr. Bernd Scheifele, CEO of HeidelbergCement. “Therewith, already two rating agencies see us only one notch away from our targeted investment grade rating.”
A new geographic information system (GIS) at Hanson Australia has been used as the test case for an international roll-out across the global operations of parent company HeidelbergCement.
Positive trend continued in Q3: sales volumes of cement, aggregates, and ready-mixed concrete increase in comparison with last year; turnover reaches €3.4 billion (+12.6% from the same quarter last year).