Standard & Poor’s raises Colgate University’s bond rating

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Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services announced today that it has raised its ratings on bonds issued for Colgate University.

The following is the news release issued by S&P:

BOSTON (Standard & Poor’s) May 21, 2012 — Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services has raised its long-term ratings and underlying ratings (SPURs) to ‘AA’  from ‘AA-‘ on bonds issued for Colgate University, N.Y.  At the same time, Standard & Poor’s assigned its ‘AA’  long-term rating to the Madison County Capital Resource Corp.’s series 2012A revenue bonds issued for the university.

“The upgrade reflects Colgate’s strong and growing financial resources, solid
demand profile, successful fundraising efforts, and positive operating
results,” said Standard & Poor’s credit analyst Nick Waugh. “The rating
reflects our view of Colgate’s strong financial resources and solid demand
profile, and strong fundraising capacity,” said Mr. Waugh.

Balancing these strengths is an historically mixed operating performance on a
generally accepted accounting principle (GAAP) basis, but the university
posted two consecutive GAAP surpluses through fiscal 2011.

The stable outlook reflects Standard & Poor’s expectation that during the
two-year outlook period, Colgate will likely maintain strong financial
resources, sustain its demand profile, generate operating results (on a
12-month basis) that are similarly positive, and issue limited additional
debt.

Standard & Poor’s could consider a negative rating action during the outlook
period if Colgate issues significant debt, demand characteristics weaken
significantly, of if financial resources fail to keep pace with the category.
Beyond the outlook period, Standard & Poor’s could consider a positive rating
action if the university significantly increases its endowment and improves
its demand profile.