Dutch cableco Ziggo has priced €750m of senior-secured notes due 2020, meaning it will reduce the sum of its previously-announced credit facility.
The notes will carry a coupon of 3.625% per annum and will be issued at a price equal to 99.8% of their…
Dutch cableco Ziggo has priced €750m of senior-secured notes due 2020, meaning it will reduce the sum of its previously-announced credit facility.
The notes will carry a coupon of 3.625% per annum and will be issued at a price equal to 99.8% of their face value to yield 3.658% per annum, the Amsterdam-listed company announced.
The bonds priced within of initial guidance at mid-swaps plus 240 basis points, a banker with knowledge of the transaction said. The initial guidance in the area of mid-swaps plus 265 basis points was tightened to mid-swaps plus 250 basis points, the banker added, also noting that the issue was upsized because of strong investor demand.
Ziggo said that, as a result of the successful issue, the total of its new credit facilities – announced on Monday – will be reduced from €800m to €650m. Specifically, Term Loan A will be reduced from €400m to €150m, while the revolving credit facility will remain at the originally-intended €400m.
The net proceeds of the new bonds and credit facilities will be used to repay outstanding amounts under an existing senior credit facility.
“This refinancing will lead to reduced financing costs for the company as well as an extension of the debt maturity,” the company said.
Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan led the transaction.
Moody’s has rated the bonds Ba1.
On Monday, Ziggo announced it had received commitments from nine banks to provide an €800m senior-secured credit facility to refinance existing debt and was also seeking additional refinancing.
The nine banks are: ABN Amro, BNP Paribas Fortis, Rabobank, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, ING-DiBa, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Societe Generale.
Barclays holds €697m of cabelco’s shares
Meanwhile, Barclays has accumulated a stake of about €697m (US$900m) in Ziggo after failing to generate enough interest in the 20% stake sale it managed for private equity shareholders Cinven Cable Investments and Warburg Pincus.
The bank disclosed in a filing to Dutch markets regulator, AFM, that it held about 28.4 million Ziggo shares as at 19 March, equal to a 14.2% stake. The €697m stake valuation is based on the €24.50 closing price of shares that day.
AFM requires shareholders to notify it when their holdings equal or exceed 5% of the issued share capital.
Barclays has declined to comment further on the matter. Cinven and Warburg and Pincus were not immediately available for comment.
Ziggo announced on Tuesday that Cinven, Warburg Pincus and co-investors had reduced their stake in the company by a further 20% via an accelerated bookbuild.
The private equity shareholders have reduced their investment in the Amsterdam-listed cableco in a series of transactions following its March 2012 IPO. The latest transaction saw them sell 40 million shares, bringing their combined stake down from about 37.1% to 17.1%.
Ziggo did not disclose how much the shares were sold for. However, news agencies have cited sources familiar with the matter as saying the sale was priced at €25.05 per share, valuing the total stake at more than €1bn. The price represents a 3.1% discount to the cableco’s closing price the previous day.
Ziggo posted revenues of €1.536bn for FY 2012, up 4% year-on-year. Adjusted EBITDA was up 5% year-on-year to €880.4m. Net debt at 31 December 2012 totalled €2.929bn.
