Rating agency Standard & Poor’s has threatened to downgrade the credit rating of Paris-listed buyout group Wendel to “junk” after share price falls at companies it has invested in increased the group’s proportion of debt to assets.

Standard & Poor’s said it placed its current BBB-/A-3 long and short term corporate credit ratings on Wendel on negative watch after citing the group’s increased gearing due to depressed market conditions and the continuing fall in the share price of some of the public companies it has invested in.