Americold Realty Operating Partnership, L.P.: Rating Report

On October 31, 2019, DBRS, Inc. (DBRS Morningstar) assigned a rating of BBB with a Stable trend to the outstanding Senior Unsecured Notes issued by Americold Realty Operating Partnership, L.P. (Americold). Americold’s rating is supported by the real estate investment trust’s (REIT) robust financial profile, its leading market position in the temperature-controlled warehouse (TCW) business, the experience and sophistication of its management team and property and geographic diversification. While DBRS Morningstar views asset quality as adequate, DBRS Morningstar believes Americold’s assets are well located, provide stable cash flow and exhibit a better-than-average ability to withstand market weakness. As well, Americold increasingly demonstrates a sustainable competitive advantage from a number of sources, including customer-switching costs, intangible assets and efficient scale. These considerations are somewhat offset by its short lease maturity profile with exposure to relatively high counterparty risk, relatively small size and asset-type concentration with pure-play exposure to the TCW space.