Standard & Poor's Upgrades Alexandria Real Estate's Credit Outlook To Positive

(RTTNews) - Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. (ARE) Monday announced that Standard & Poor's Rating Services raised its credit outlook for the company to Positive from Stable, reflecting continued and further anticipated improvement in key credit metrics and growth in cash flows. The growth in the outlook is chiefly driven by the near-term completion and delivery of significant rentable square feet or RSF of pre-leased value-creation development projects, the lengthening of the weighted average remaining maturity of outstanding debt to around 6.3 years, and the reduction in unhedged variable rate debt to 7% of total debt.

The company's credit profile has improved steadily since receipt of its initial credit rating in July 2011. It's total market capitalization and gross assets are nearing $10 billion. Furthermore, strong, growing and stable cash flows are supported by a client tenant base, with investment-grade-rated client tenants representing over 50% of the company's total annualized base rent. The company's credit rating is expected to further improve as it continues to strengthen its overall credit metrics and cash flows mainly through the completion and delivery of pre-leased value-creation development projects.