Sept. 15 (Bloomberg) -- HeidelbergCement AG’s plan to sell shares may help the company’s chances of successfully refinancing debt, according to Standard & Poor’s.

Channeling proceeds from the sale of 62.5 million shares into cutting debt should ease pressure on loan covenants, S&P said. S&P said it may raise its credit rating for the German cement and aggregates maker, owned by the Merckle family.

The share sale is another step to bring more than 11 billion euros ($16 billion) of debt under control after talks with about 30 creditors. HeidelbergCement, which bought Hanson Plc for $12 billion in 2007, will aim for disposals to raise additional funds before 8.7 billion euros in credit are due in 2011, S&P analyst Xavier Buffon said.

“Any material cash proceeds to be raised from this prospective capital increase could somewhat improve the group’s financial profile and key credit metrics through a like-amount of debt reduction, and provide larger headroom under financial covenants,” Buffon said in a statement late yesterday.

If the take-up for the new shares is limited or the price too low to generate material cash proceeds, ratings would be left unchanged, S&P’s Buffon said.

The new shares will be priced on Sept. 22.

Moody’s Investors Service, in a separate statement, said it’s too early to assess the final result on HeidelbergCement’s profile. Proceeds above the 1.5 billion-euro mark would likely stabilize the outlook on the company’s B1 rating, it said.

HeidelbergCement’s B1 rating at Moody’s ranks the company four steps below investment grade, while Standard & Poor’s rates the cement maker two steps lower, at B-.

Major shareholders, including Merckle investment arms Spohn Cement GmbH and VEM Vermögensverwaltung GmbH, may sell a similar amount of stock. That will increase the company’s free float and enhance the financial flexibility of the cement maker, Moody’s said.

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Last Updated: September 15, 2009 09:21 EDT