AT&T Co has had the thumbs up from Standard & Poor’s Corp for its proposed acquisition of NCR Corp, which had had its ratings on both companies’ debt on CreditWatch with negative implications since December 10: it has now reaffirmed all its previous ratings on $13,000m of AT&T and $500m of NCR debt, saying it expects that AT&T will offset the increased business risk from raising its capital exposure to the computer business will be offset by a conservative financial policy. It also likes the fact that NCR management is likely to clear out all the dead wood in personnel and asset terms at AT&T Computer Systems, improving the profitability of the division of which it is a part.
