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S&P flags Abbott's credit rating for possible upgrade

S&P Global Ratings flagged Abbott Laboratories for a possible upgrade.

The agency affirmed Abbott's BBB corporate credit rating and revised the outlook on the company to positive, signaling an upgrade to BBB+ within the typical two-year outlook period provided the Lake Bluff, Ill.-based healthcare company maintains its leverage, or the investment strategy to use borrowed money, in the multiple of three areas in the long term.

S&P said the positive outlook reflects Abbot's strong operating performance over the past several quarters and the faster-than-anticipated deleveraging, or the strategy to pay off existing debt, following its acquisitions of St. Jude Medical Inc. and Alere Inc. in 2017.

The rating agency expects the company's solid growth trend to continue beyond 2018.

S&P said it could revise the outlook back to stable if Abbott's financial policy proves to be more aggressive by pursuing acquisitions that result in leverage consistently being above a multiple of three.

This S&P Global Market Intelligence news article may contain information about credit ratings issued by S&P Global Ratings, a separately managed division of S&P Global. Descriptions in this news article were not prepared by S&P Global Ratings. The original S&P Global Ratings documents referred to in this news brief can be found here.