Carnival’s S&P rating remains unchanged following Costa Concordia incident

AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia

Late Friday evening, we were among the first reporting on the tragic accident with the Costa Concordia pulling much of our information off of the Twitter live stream.  It’s been such a sad weekend with the loss of life and 4000+ passengers and crew affected by such a terrifying event.

When markets open on Tuesday follwoing the MLK holiday, we will begin to understand the impacts that this event will have on Carnival Corp and the cruise industry.

Carnival’s S&P rating remains unchanged

This evening, Standards & Poors announced that the debt rating for Carnival Corp will remain unchanged following the terrible accident this weekend.  S&P took into account Carnival Corp’s loss revenues from the Costa Concordia being removed from the fleet,  investigation, costs refunding booked guests, and potential for lower prices for Costa cruises as well as spill over to the other Carnival brands.

S&P calculated a scenario where net yields would be negatively impacted by 3%.  This would be put them close to their maximum threshold for Debt to EBITDA, but still inline with their current BBB+ rating.

S&P also looked at Costa Concordia impacting Royal Caribbean and NCL pricing up to 3%.  Even in this worse case scenario, NCL and Royal Caribbean will stay in line with their current S&P ratings.

S&P said that they will be monitoring cruise pricing closely to if see if they need to make any adjustments to their ratings.

Read the complete statement from Reuters on S&Ps Bulletin about Carnivals Debt Rating.

Related posts:

1. Recent Costa Concordia Sinking Photos and Video
2. Costa Concordia has to be evacuated off the coast of Italy
3. Costa Deliziosa – Inaugural Event Update
4. Costa Deliziosa Videos
5. Costa Deliziosa Inaugural Event – Pics