Moody\u2019s Ratings has changed the outlook for Southern Company to negative from stable. Georgia Power\u2019s outlook was moved to stable from positive. Moody\u2019s also confirmed both companies\u2019 existing ratings.<\/p>\n
Southern keeps its Baa1 senior unsecured rating and Prime-2 commercial paper rating. Georgia Power keeps its A3 issuer and senior unsecured ratings.<\/p>\n
Moody\u2019s said Southern\u2019s negative outlook is because its financial metrics may not stay strong enough for the Baa1 rating. This is mainly due to higher debt supporting a $76 billion capital investment plan over the next five years. That is up from a previous $63 billion plan.<\/p>\n
Jeff Cassella from Moody\u2019s explained that Southern\u2019s cash flow compared to debt is expected to stay around 15% for the next few years. This is below the 16% level Moody\u2019s expected when it last upgraded the company. To help fund investments, Southern plans to issue $9 billion in new equity, with nearly half already completed.<\/p>\n
Georgia Power\u2019s outlook change to stable reflects a lower chance of reaching the financial strength needed for an A2 rating. The utility has a rate plan settlement freezing base rates through 2028, while its capital investments have grown due to expected new large customers.<\/p>\n
For the year ending June 30, 2025, Southern\u2019s cash flow to debt ratio was 14%, while Georgia Power\u2019s was 18.4%. Without hurricane-related deferred costs, these would have been about 15% and 22%, respectively.<\/p>\n
Moody\u2019s also affirmed Southern Electric Generating Company\u2019s A2 rating with a stable outlook and Southern Company Funding Corporation\u2019s Prime-2 commercial paper rating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Moody\u2019s Ratings has changed the outlook for Southern Company to negative from stable. Georgia Power\u2019s outlook was moved to stable\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":294,"featured_media":88880,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[32686],"class_list":["post-88877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-markets","tag-moodys"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/294"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}