To assess the suitability of Veolia Environnement for the issuance of hybrid bonds, we evaluate the provided financial data and market context against the established guidelines: 1. **Industry Profile:** Veolia operates in environmental services (water, waste, energy). This sector is highly "utility-like" and "infrastructure-like," providing essential services with high cash-flow visibility, which aligns with the "Strongly Suitable" profile. 2. **Financial Metrics and Leverage:** Veolia's 2022 Net Debt / EBITDA ratio is 3.92, and FFO / Net Debt is approximately 0.1972. Moody’s characterizes the company’s leverage trend as "deteriorating." These metrics indicate a business that is pressured and would benefit from the equity-credit characteristics of hybrid bonds to protect its credit rating and maintain headroom. 3. **Track Record:** Veolia has a long history with the hybrid market, having first issued such instruments in 2010 and having issued hybrid bonds during the 2021-2022 period. This confirms the company’s familiarity with, and credibility in, these capital markets. 4. **Strategic Rationale:** Given the significant capital intensity required for operations and its recent M&A activities (notably the acquisition of Suez), hybrid capital serves as a logical tool to manage leverage without triggering equity dilution, consistent with the "Strongly Suitable" criteria for entities whose credit metrics are under pressure and require stabilization. 5. **Alignment with Guidelines:** The combination of a utility-like business profile, a deteriorating financial trend (per Moody’s), an existing track record of hybrid usage, and the need to preserve rating headroom makes the entity a clear candidate for hybrid issuance. Given these factors—essential service nature, deteriorating financial metrics, clear funding rationale, and a proven history of utilizing this specific instrument—Veolia is considered strongly suitable for the issuance of hybrid bonds. Strongly Suitable