Bangkok--14 Oct--Standard & Poor's
Standard & Poor's Ratings Services has corrected its ratings on Whittier Utility Authority, Calif.'s series 2003A water revenue bonds by raising them to 'AA+/Stable'. On Oct. 2, 2009, we incorrectly assigned two separate ratings to these bonds: The enhanced rating is based on a bond insurance policy from National Public Finance Guarantee Corp., (National; A/Developing); and the (other) long-term rating is based on the underlying credit of the authority (AA+/Stable). However, the authority's long-term rating should have been assigned as a Standard & Poor's underlying rating (SPUR) and not as a separate rating. As a result of this correction, the public rating assigned to these 2003A bonds will reflect the utility authority's SPUR, in accordance with our criteria that the issue credit rating on a fully credit-enhanced bond is the higher of the rating on the credit enhancer and the SPUR. The National bond insurance policy remains pledged to the bonds.
Complete ratings information is available to RatingsDirect subscribers at www.ratingsdirect.com. All ratings affected by this rating action can be found on Standard & Poor's public Web site at www.standardandpoors.com; select your preferred country or region, then Ratings in the left navigation bar, followed by Find a Rating.
Media Contact:
Ana Sandoval, New York (1) 212-438-5095, [email protected]
Analyst Contacts:
Li H Yang, San Francisco 1-415-371-5024
Chris Morgan, San Francisco (1) 415-371-5032