Moody’s Investors Service said it assigned a Ba1 rating to the new senior secured credit facility of Swift Transportation, comprising a $600 million senior secured revolving line of credit and a $680 million senior secured Term Loan A.

The new facility replaces Swift’s previous $450 million revolving line of credit and refinances outstanding amounts under the company’s Term Loan A of $488 million and Term Loan B of $395 million. Swift’s Corporate Family Rating is Ba2 and the ratings outlook is stable.

The Ba2 CFR for Swift takes into account the company’s position as a leading provider of transportation services in the North American truckload market. The rating also reflects the company’s attractive operating margins, which Moody’s calculates at approximately 9%, on an adjusted basis, in each of the last four years. With efficiency improvements in the Central Refrigerated segment and better asset utilization in its Intermodal segment, Moody’s believes that Swift should be able to maintain or possibly improve this level of operating margin, despite increasing wages due to persistent driver shortages. The competitive advantages afforded by the company’s young fleet of tractors, augmented by Swift’s initiative to shorten its tractor trade-in cycle to 36 – 48 months, are also supportive of the Ba2 rating.

Access the full text of Moody’s report here.