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Monday, March 18, 2019

S&P places Kraft Heinz on CreditWatch negative after company misses deadline to file annual report

Standard & Poor's on Monday placed Kraft Heinz on CreditWatch Negative after the struggling food giant failed to file its annual report with the Securities and Exchange Commission even after an extended deadline.

Last month, the company wrote down $15.4 billion on its namesake Kraft and Oscar Mayer brands, slashed its dividend and disclosed a subpoena from the SEC. Since that announcement, shares of Kraft Heinz have dropped more than 33 percent.

Executives told investors when they were delivering the bad news that the company is planning to use divestitures to pay down its debt. CNBC has previously reported that it is weighing sales of its Maxwell House coffee brand and its dairy business.

The following week, it announced that it would not be able to meet the SEC deadline to file its annual report for fiscal 2018. The SEC granted Kraft Heinz a 15-day extension to file the report, but the company missed the extended deadline Thursday.

The rating agency could lower or affirm its ratings for Kraft Heinz, including its BBB long-term issuer credit rating and A-2 short-term issuer credit rating, after it concludes a review. S&P said that it plans to resolve the CreditWatch after analyzing the annual report once it is filed, in addition to its filing for the first quarter of fiscal 2019.

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