The good news: Another credit agency raised Boston Scientific Corp.‘s rating. The bad news: The Natick-based medical devices giant is still rated as a junk bond.
Standard and Poor’s Ratings Services boosted Boston Scientific’s rating outlook to positive from negative but kept its corporate credit rating at BB+, a few days after Moody’s Investors Service upped its outlook on BSC from negative to stable and gave it a Ba1 rating.
Like Moody’s, Standard and Poor’s based its revision on the company’s ongoing effort to pay down debt, its large share of the drug-eluting stent market and the promise shown in the market for cardiac rhythm management devices.
But Moody’s Ba1 rating and the BB+ granted by S&P are still a notch below investment grade, relegating BoSci to junk bond status. A third credit rater, Fitch, has yet to re-evaluate the company.