**Step 1: Identify the relevant industry**
VERBUND AG is an Austrian electricity company that generates, trades, and distributes electricity. Given its operations involving power generation and grid revenue, it fits the **Regulated Utilities** and/or **Unregulated Power And Gas** industries as defined by S&P. Under both methodologies, the standard corporate baseline formulas for debt and EBITDA adjustments apply, with specific considerations for items like purchased power agreements (PPAs) and leases. 

**Step 2: Estimate Adjusted Debt**
Following the baseline formula: Adjusted_Debt = (reported_debt + leases + pension_deficit + guarantees + hybrid_debt_portion + other_debt_like_items) - eligible_cash

*   **Reported Debt:** Combining noncurrent and current financial liabilities:
    *   Noncurrent Financial Liabilities (2022-12-31): 2,844,559,000 EUR
    *   Current Financial Liabilities (2022-12-31): 1,109,297,000 EUR
    *   Total Reported Debt = 3,953,856,000 EUR
*   **Leases:** Under S&P methodology, operating leases are debt-like. The Right-of-use Assets are 146,613,000 EUR, and Cash Flows from Finance Leases paid is 11,447,000 EUR. Estimating the lease liability via a 6x multiplier on the lease payment (11,447,000 * 6) yields 68,682,000 EUR. Alternatively, using the balance sheet approach, the total lease liability (current + noncurrent) closely aligns with the ROU asset minus deferred rent; taking a standard approximation based on the ROU asset and repayment profile, we estimate the lease debt at roughly 120,000,000 EUR. We will use 120,000,000 EUR as a reasonable estimate for the lease liability.
*   **Pension Deficit / Guarantees / Hybrids / Other debt-like items:** The equity statement reveals no hybrid instruments (Issued Capital + Capital Reserve + Retained Earnings + Reserves = Total Equity). No significant unrecorded pension deficit or guarantees are provided in the data. Other debt-like items (derivatives) are typically netted against derivative assets in S&P adjustments or treated as operating items rather than debt in this specific sector, so we exclude them from Adjusted Debt.
*   **Eligible Cash:** S&P generally allows cash to be deducted from debt up to the amount of reported debt. Cash and Cash Equivalents (2022-12-31) = 409,252,000 EUR.

Adjusted_Debt = 3,953,856,000 + 120,000,000 - 409,252,000 = 3,664,604,000 EUR

**Step 3: Estimate Adjusted EBITDA**
Following the baseline formula: Adjusted_EBITDA = EBITDA (reported or reconstructed) + adjustment_leases + nonrecurring_losses - nonrecurring_gains ± pension_adjustments ± joint_venture_proportional_EBITDA ± other_normalization_adjustments

*   **Reported EBITDA:** 3,160,679,000 EUR
*   **Adjustment for Leases:** Under S&P ratios and adjustments criteria, rent expense (which is part of EBITDA for operating leases) must be adjusted. When moving operating leases to debt, we remove the rent expense from EBITDA and add back the depreciation and interest of the lease. The net adjustment to EBITDA is typically around +1/3 of the lease rent expense. Using the lease payment of 11,447,000 EUR, the adjustment is approximately 11,447,000 * (1/3) = 3,815,667 EUR. 
*   **Other adjustments:** No major nonrecurring items (impairments are netted in the reported EBITDA reconstruction or are part of standard operations for utilities). 
*   **JV Proportional EBITDA:** Only the equity method share of profit is given, so we use reported EBITDA without further proportional gross-up as is standard unless specific cash flow data for JVs is available.

Adjusted_EBITDA = 3,160,679,000 + 3,815,667 = 3,164,494,667 EUR

**Step 4: Calculate Adjusted Debt / Adjusted EBITDA**
Ratio = 3,664,604,000 / 3,164,494,667 ≈ 1.158

<answer>1.16</answer>