French cableco Numericable is set to boost its high-yield bond offering to fund its acquisition of mobile operator SFR to €8.4bn.
Strong demand has prompted Numericable to upsize the offering from €6.04bn, various media reported citing people…
French cableco Numericable is set to boost its high-yield bond offering to fund its acquisition of mobile operator SFR to €8.4bn.
Strong demand has prompted Numericable to upsize the offering from €6.04bn, various media reported citing people familiar with the matter.
Numericable and its parent Altice agreed earlier this month to buy SFR from French media and telecoms group Vivendi for €13.5bn in cash.
The financing consists of a €4.7bn capital increase at Numericable and a €11.64bn debt package. Originally, the debt package was to include a €5.6bn term loan and a €6.04bn bond however, according to news agency reports, the demand from bond investors convinced the company to halve the size of the loan to €2.8bn and upsize the bond.
The bond sale, set to take place today, is said to include euro and US dollar portions over several tranches.
If successful, the offering will exceed US mobile operator Sprint’s US$6.5bn high-yield bond offering last September, then said to be the largest such issue by any company since 2008.
JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs are global coordinators for the bond and loan package. Barclays, BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole, Credit Suisse, ING and Morgan Stanley are additional joint bookrunners.
Loan slashed
Both tranches of the loan portion of the financing were significantly downsized, Reuters reported. The euro-denominated tranche of term loan B was said to have been cut from €2.6bn to €1.75bn and the US dollar-denominated tranche from €3bn equivalent to €1bn equivalent. The loan is expected to price at the wide end of an initial guidance of 350-375bps and at a discount of 99 to 99.5.
Numericable was not immediately available for comment.
Separately, Altice is looking to launch a €4.15bn note offering and a €570m capital increase to subscribe to shares in Numericable’s planned rights issue.
Altice will subscribe pro rata (74.6%) to the rights issue, spending €3.53bn. The remaining proceeds will go towards refinancing some of its existing margins loans (€330m), buying an additional stake in Numericable from PE investors Carlyle and Cinven (€530m), for an interest overfund (€250m), and transaction costs (€80m).
Altice may also launch a €200m RCF.
