Moody's downgraded Becton,............>

US CORPORATES: Moody's downgraded Becton, Dickinson and Co. "to speculative

grade and assigned a Ba1 Corporate Family Rating and a Ba1-PD Probability of

Default Rating. Moody's downgraded the company's senior unsecured notes to Ba1

(LGD 4) from Baa2 (review for downgrade) and its commercial paper rating to Not

Prime from Prime-2. Moody's also assigned a Speculative Grade Liquidity Rating

of SGL-1" and "affirmed the Ba1 (LGD 4) ratings on debt securities and a bank

revolving credit facility that were issued earlier in 2017 to pre-fund the Bard

acquisition. The rating outlook is stable. Today's rating actions conclude the

review for downgrade that commenced on April 23, 2017."

- "The rating downgrade results from the expected completion of BD's acquisition

of C.R. Bard Inc. following receipt of all requisite approvals in a transaction

that initially valued Bard at approximately $25.2 billion," stated Scott Tuhy,

sr vp at Moody's. "The transaction resulted in BD's debt load nearly doubling

(including assumed debt issued by Bard) and pro-forma leverage (debt/EBITDA)

near 5 times."