Moody’s Ratings had more bad news for Eversource Energy this month, handing down yet another downgrade to one of its subsidiaries amid a tumultuous year for Connecticut’s largest electric utility.
The credit rating agency announced last week that it had downgraded Connecticut Light & Power Co.’s rating outlook from stable to negative, pointing both to the company’s “weak financial profile” and to Connecticut’s “inconsistent and unpredictable regulatory environment.”
But the hit on CL&P’s outlook is only the latest in a series of negative rating changes the credit agency has handed down to parent Eversource.
Since October 2023, Moody’s has downgraded Eversource and its subsidiaries a total of six times, and as of June 18, Eversource and two of its six subsidiaries have negative credit rating outlooks.
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Just last month, Moody’s dropped Aquarion Water Company of Connecticut’s low-risk A3 credit rating to a higher-risk Baa1 rating.
As with CL&P, the ratings agency cited the water company’s “weakening financial profile” as its rationale for the downgrade. Jeff Cassella, vice president and senior credit officer at Moody’s, again referenced a regulatory environment that “has become more challenging and less credit supportive for the state's regulated utilities.”
However, AWC-CT — which Eversource is expected to put up for sale as early as July — also saw Moody’s upgrade its rating outlook from negative to stable last month, with the agency noting it expects that “the Connecticut regulatory environment's credit supportiveness will not deteriorate further.”
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This move came only a few months after Moody’s downgraded the rating outlooks of both Eversource and NSTAR Electric, and less than a year after it knocked their credit ratings down.
