S&P Global Ratings upgraded its ratings on Kansas City Power & Light Co., including the issuer credit rating to A from A-, citing the strength of utility's stand-alone credit profile.
The rating agency also upgraded the Evergy Inc. subsidiary's senior secured notes to A+ from A, its senior unsecured notes to A from A-, its senior unsecured revenue bonds to A/A-1 from A-/A-2 and its commercial paper to A-1 from A-2, with a stable outlook.
The upgrade follows S&P Global Ratings' review of its ratings on Kansas City Power & Light, or KCP&L, under its revised criteria. The review "established that KCP&L is well insulated from parent Evergy Inc., meaning we expect any significant credit stress at Evergy would have a minimal adverse effect on KCP&L's creditworthiness," S&P Global Ratings wrote in an Aug. 7 report.
The stable outlook reflects the rating agency's base-case scenario that the utility will generate sufficient cash flow to maintain financial measures that support adjusted funds from operations to debt of 20% to 22% from 2019 through 2021, which is at the upper end of S&P Global Ratings' significant financial risk profile assessment, the report said.
This S&P Global Market Intelligence news article may contain information about credit ratings issued by S&P Global Ratings. Descriptions in this news article were not prepared by S&P Global Ratings.
