US towerco Crown Castle has borrowed US$700m in incremental term loans, split between a US$500m tranche maturing in January 2021 and a US$200m tranche due November 2018.
The funding was raised via its direct subsidiary, Crown Castle Operating Company…
US towerco Crown Castle has borrowed US$700m in incremental term loans, split between a US$500m tranche maturing in January 2021 and a US$200m tranche due November 2018.
The funding was raised via its direct subsidiary, Crown Castle Operating Company (CCOC).
The US$500m tranche B-2 loan bears an annual interest rate equal to Libor plus 2.25% to 2.5%, based on CCOC’s total net leverage ratio. The US$200m tranche A loan carries an interest rate equivalent to Libor plus 1.5% to 2.25%.
Proceeds were used to prepay part of its revolving credit facility. CCOC now has “approximately US$374m of revolving credit loans outstanding under its existing US$1.5bn revolver”, the tower company said in a statement earlier this week.
Crown Castle added that the maturity of the US$1.5bn revolver has been extended to November 2018.
BofA Merrill Lynch, RBS and Morgan Stanley arranged the financing.
Crown Castle recently drew around US$875m from the revolver to help fund the acquisition of the long-term rights to more than 9,000 of mobile giant AT&T’s towers, and buy a further 600 sites outright.
The US$4.83bn deal was announced in October and increases the number of masts Crown Castle has rights to in the US by a third to 40,000.
Besides debt financing, Crown Castle funded the deal through a US$3.42bn equity offering and cash on hand.
