Malaysia’s Felda Global to hire investment banks next week-paper



“It will definitely be larger than MSM Malaysia Holdings IPO,” Sabri said in the news report, referring to the listing of its sugar arm that was valued at 2.4 billion ringgit.Felda Global Ventures proposed listing could be bigger than Bumi Armada’s $890 million IPO this year and signals some optimism within weaker market conditions that has already delayed and even cancelled IPOs globally.Sabri did not give a value for the new listing that is scheduled for the middle of next year.Felda Global officials were not immediately available for comment.Felda Global is the commercial arm of the Federal Land Development Authority, the world’s largest owner of mostly oil palms and rubber estates that total 850,000 hectares.The land authority helps rural settlers develop agriculture commodities. The land belonging to these small farmers is roughly half a million hectares while the rest comes under Felda.In a separate interview with a local television station, Mohammad Isa Samad, the chairman of the land authority said land belonging to the small farmers will not be included in the listing.

EURO GOVT-Bunds steady ahead of Italian debt auction



After falling for six consecutive sessions, the Bund future opened 1 tick higher at 133.57. The contract could extend recent losses if risk appetite continued to improve and supported a strong sale of Italian debt later in the day.”It feels like the market seizes on anything even vaguely risk-asset positive at the moment and ignores anything that’s supportive,” a trader said.Italy will sell up to 6.5 billion euros of BTP bonds across four separate maturities. Most notably, a reopening of the 2025 BTP marks the first sale since mid-July of bonds that fall outside the current scope of the European Central Bank’s bond-buying programmes.”We suspect the tap (of the 2025 bond) is the response to high demand from market dealers. As such, the long paper should be easily absorbed,” said Annalisa Piazza, strategist at Newedge.Italian 10-year bond yields rose in the previous session as investors looked to build a concession into market prices.

TEXT-S&P upgrades Adecco to ‘BBB’;outlook stable



— The operating results of Switzerland-based personnel services group Adecco S.A. remain strong and its credit metrics are commensurate with the higher ‘BBB’ rating.— We are therefore raising our long-term corporate credit rating on Adecco to ‘BBB’ from ‘BBB-‘.— The stable outlook reflects our view that Adecco’s operating performance and credit metrics will remain resilient to challenging economic conditions.Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services said today that it raised its long-term corporate credit rating on Switzerland-based personnel services group Adecco S.A. to ‘BBB’ from ‘BBB-‘. At the same time, the short-term rating was raised to ‘A-2’ from ‘A-3’. The outlook is stable.The upgrades reflect our view that Adecco’s credit metrics have outperformed our guidance for the ‘BBB-’ rating and have rebounded more strongly than we anticipated from the downturn in 2009. The company had Standard & Poor’s-adjusted debt totaling EUR1.9 billion on June 30, 2011. The company’s operating performance has improved since the acquisition of MPS Group Inc. in 2009, with rolling 12-month revenues of EUR21.1 billion on June 30, 2011, up 25% from the same period in the prior year.We assess Adecco’s financial risk profile as intermediate. This is supported by the company’s credit metrics, including a ratio of funds from operations (FFO) to adjusted debt of 43.7% and adjusted debt to EBITDA of 2.0x on June 30, 2011. We forecast that these ratios will continue strengthening to reach FFO to adjusted debt of more than 50% and adjusted debt to EBITDA near 1.5x for calendar 2011.For 2012, given the possibility of a double-dip recession in Europe and the U.S., we have considered a moderate stress scenario, with revenues falling 5% and adjusted EBITDA margins falling to 4%. Under these conditions, we forecast that Adecco’s credit metrics will continue to improve. A harsher scenario—which we have not factored into the ratings—of revenues falling 30% and adjusted EBITDA margins dropping to 2.7%, would lower FFO to adjusted debt to more than 30% and adjusted debt to EBITDA to about 3.0x.In our view, Adecco will maintain its solid operating performance in the medium term, and the company’s financial risk profile is strong enough to withstand a modest double-dip recession. The outlook also reflects our forecast that credit measures will remain commensurate with the ‘BBB’ rating, with adjusted FFO to debt of about 35% and adjusted debt to EBITDA of less than 2.5x. At this time, we do not see a further upgrade as likely.Rating downside could occur if the company were to adopt a more shareholder-friendly strategy and/or show an appetite for material debt-financed acquisitions that would have a negative effect on its financial risk profile. Although it is not our forecasted scenario, rating downside could also arise if the company’s operating performance were to deteriorate significantly.RELATED CRITERIA AND RESEARCHAll articles listed below are available on RatingsDirect on the Global Credit Portal, unless otherwise stated.— The Specter of a Double Dip in Europe Looms Larger, Oct. 4, 2011— Criteria Methodology: Business Risk/Financial Risk Matrix Expanded, May 27, 2009— 2008 Corporate Criteria: Analytical Methodology, April 15, 2008— 2008 Corporate Criteria: Ratios And Adjustments, April 15, 2008