Bell Atlantic Corp’s Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co of West Virginia has had a fillip from Standard & Poor’s Corp, which raised its senior unsecured debt rating to double-A-plus from double-A, affecting about $265m of debt, the move being made in the expectation that the company’s network modernisation and supportive regulation will help it to improve an already strong debt service capacity. Tricord Systems Inc, building servers in Plymouth, Michigan got its initial public offering of 3m shares, 2.5m of them new, away at $11 a share, and plans to use the $25m or so net proceeds to repay debt and for working capital. The offering was via underwriters managed by Robertson, Stephens & Co LP, and Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Co Inc.
