Midroog Downgrades Discount Inv bonds,Assigns Negative Outlook
03 October 2011 - 8:40PM
Dow Jones News
Midroog, the Israeli unit of Moody's Investor Services, has
downgraded Discount Investment Corp. Ltd.'s (DISI.TV) bonds to A1
from Aa3 and assigned a negative outlook, the Israeli holding
company said Monday.
The downgrade and negative outlook mainly stem from the
company's increased debt levels due to a drop in the value of its
holdings and to a less favorable business environment for some of
its subsidiaries, Midroog said.
It said its main concern was the decline in value of Discount
subsidiary Koor Industries Ltd.'s (KOR.TV) holdings in Credit
Suissse (CS.NYSE). Discount owns 63% of Koor and recently loaned it
ILS500 million ($135 million) to help it lower its debt ratio on
guarantees to banks who loaned it money to make investments in
Credit Suisse.
In August, Midroog downgraded Discount's bonds to Aa3 from Aa2
due to the same concerns.
At 0858GMT, shares of Discount were up ILS 0.07, or 0.24% at
ILS29.37, and shares of Koor were up ILS 0.07, or 0.20%, at ILS
34.66, in a lower Tel Aviv market.
-By Sara Toth Stub, Contributing to Dow Jones Newswires,
saratoth@gmail.com