UUW

The ratings also take into account our expectation for post-maintenance and post-tax interest cover (PMICR) and net debt/regulatory asset value (RAV) to remain within guidance for the ratings over AMP6 and UUW's improved regulatory performance.

UU is a holding company which owns UUW, the regulated monopoly water and sewage service provider for north-west England, and a number of subsidiaries, mainly in the UK.

Adequate Credit Metrics: Fitch expects UUW's gearing in terms of pension-adjusted net debt/regulatory asset value (RAV) to average around 65% and PMICR to average around 2.8x for AMP6, which are comfortably within our guidelines for the rating.

The purpose of comparing the results of AW and UUW is to find out how a user's activities in the physical world can influence his/her activities in the virtual world, while comparing the results of AW and ULW is just for the inverse purpose.

Furthermore, UUW containing the weighted user-user edge only performs better than UW but much worse than AW, which shows that using both the information in physical world and virtual world in link prediction can provide much better results.

The outlook on UU's and UUW's long-term IDRs is "stable".

The ratings reflect the negative impact on UUW's earnings dynamics from the water regulator's (OFWAT) final determination on tariffs for 2010 to 2015, as well as the tough economic environment, its below-average operational and regulatory performance and gearing at the top end of the regulator's template range of 55%-65%, Fitch said.

Over the five-year period to April 2010 UUW will invest another pounds 2.

UUW's January euro issue was first major issue by a UK water company since Of Wat's price review was finalised in December.

UU is a holding company which owns UUW, the regulated monopoly water and sewage service provider for northwest England, and a number of subsidiaries pursuing less capital-intensive outsourcing contracts in the utility market, mainly in the UK.

Fitch calculates UUW's gearing in terms of pension-adjusted net debt/regulatory asset value (RAV) at 65% and PMICR at 2.2x for FY15 (the last year of AMP5).