Koninklijke KPN, the Dutch telecoms company, is enjoying the fruits of its concerted debt reduction programme with a long-awaited credit rating upgrade from Moody's Investors Service.

Moody's, which upgraded KPN by one notch to Baa2, even added a sweetener - it left the new rating on review for another upgrade. The new rating puts the company two notches above junk status and matches the rating from Standard & Poor's, which upgraded KPN to an equivalent BBB earlier this year. The S&P rating is also on positive outlook.