Baptist Health earns all A's from bond rating agencies

Baptist Health's continued strong financial performance and market position earned a dramatic, and unprecedented, upgrade

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY (Oct. 1, 2020) -- Baptist Health’s continued strong financial performance and market position earned a dramatic, and unprecedented, upgrade from Moody’s Investors Service, to A2-stable.  Fitch Ratings also improved their outlook to an A-positive.

“Our team has worked very diligently over the last three years to improve not only our financial performance, but to hone our strategic direction to better serve our communities and position Baptist Health for a bright future,” said CEO Gerard Colman.

The Moody’s rating represents a bond rating upgrade by two levels – from Baa1-stable to A2-stable. “This is an unprecedented move at any time, but even more during a pandemic,” Oglesby said. “This is a recognition of our high quality operations over the past several years, the strength of our balance sheet, our strong response to COVID-19, and our exciting use of technology to reach and care for our patients.”

Moody’s attributed the upgrade to “a material multiyear improvement in operating performance demonstrating durability of significant turnaround strategies imparted by management.”

Fitch, in revising Baptist Health’s outlook from stable to positive, noted that Baptist’s strong financial position and operations correlate with ‘AA’ rated systems.  Fitch also noted that Baptist Health has outlined capital investments for strategic expansions in the Louisville, Lexington and Elizabethtown markets, and expects these to keep the rating in the ‘A’ category.

“The Fitch rating of ‘A’ incorporates our financing of a portion of these strategic capital plans,” Oglesby added. “And the outlook of positive reflects the confidence Fitch has that we will continue our strong performance during this period of expansion.”

Fitch and Moody’s separately released the ratings on Sept. 30.