Responding to the announcement last week that its credit ratings were being put under review for possible downgrade by Moody’s Investors Service, Williams CEO Steve Malcolm said that while he is “very disappointed” with the announcement, “we are still fully committed to maintaining our current level of investment-grade credit rating.” Williams shares fell from more than $19/share on Monday to as low as $16.15 on Friday.

Moody’s said Williams Companies Inc. and its affiliates have had a negative outlook since Feb. 27, 2002. Moody’s currently rates Williams’ debt as Baa2, two grades above the agency’s investment-grade rating threshold. The ratings agency said it recognizes that Williams has made progress in reducing its “sizable” debt burden but the following items still must be assessed:

“We will continue to work with Moody’s and all of the major credit-rating agencies to ensure that they fully understand our business model and our performance,” said Malcolm. “We also plan to continue our dialogue with them as they work on revising their ratings criteria so that we can understand what is required to maintain our investment-grade rating in this new environment.

“We’ve clearly demonstrated a capacity and willingness to quickly enhance our financial strength and flexibility with a number of significant, disciplined actions,” Malcolm said. He noted that since December, the company has taken the following steps:

“We’ve also said that we plan additional asset sales and cost reductions and that we have committed to consider the broadest range of steps, including issuing equity, to meet the new, still developing, criteria for companies in our sector of the energy industry,” he said.

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