US telecoms giant AT&T has priced US$500m of three-year floating rate notes at 99.8 as it looks to refinance debt belonging to recently-acquired prepaid operator Leap Wireless.
The unsecured paper pays interest at Libor plus 42bps and JP Morgan is the…
US telecoms giant AT&T has priced US$500m of three-year floating rate notes at 99.8 as it looks to refinance debt belonging to recently-acquired prepaid operator Leap Wireless.
The unsecured paper pays interest at Libor plus 42bps and JP Morgan is the sole bookrunner on the transaction.
Proceeds will be used to repay 7.75% senior notes due 2020 owed by Leap’s operating subsidiary Cricket Communications.
The bond was rated A3, A- and A by Moody’s, S&P and Fitch, respectively.
AT&T closed its acquisition of Leap in mid-March following approval from local regulator FCC. The deal, which has an enterprise value of US$4bn, was agreed last July and will see AT&T move into the prepaid market where the Cricket brand boasts 4.57 million customers.
When owned by Leap, Cricket’s network covered 97 million people across 35 states. AT&T said Cricket will now cover close to 280 million people via its 4G LTE network.
In addition to Cricket, AT&T also acquired spectrum in the PCS and AWS bands from Leap which covers nearly 138 million people.
