Moody's downgrades Staples unsecured debt

It seems there is another price to be paid by Staples for the acquisition of CE. We can read here that Moody's has downgraded the senior unsecured rating of Staples debt to Baa2 from Baa1, citing the "sharp rise in leverage that results from Staples' fully priced acquisition of Corporate Express." It is pretty obvious that, given the problems in international financial markets, shareholders of CE got a really good deal with the acquisition by Staples. In this challenging environment, the sooner Staples demonstrates the benefits and synergies from the acquisition for their shareholders, the better it will be. (end of post)