Italian telco Wind Telecomunicazioni has opened the books on a dual-tranche bond offering valued at about €500m.
The issue of senior-secured notes will be comprised of a US dollar tranche of at least US$400m and a euro tranche of at least €150m,…
Italian telco Wind Telecomunicazioni has opened the books on a dual-tranche bond offering valued at about €500m.
The issue of senior-secured notes will be comprised of a US dollar tranche of at least US$400m and a euro tranche of at least €150m, according to a person with knowledge of the transaction.
Joint bookrunners for the transaction are Banca IMI, BNP Paribas, Societe Generale, UBS and Unicredit.
The US dollar tranche will have a fixed rate and a seven-year maturity, while the euro tranche will have a floating rate and a six-year maturity, the source stated.
The notes are expected to be priced tomorrow (19 April) and listed on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange.
Moody’s has assigned the offering a (P)Ba3 rating, while Fitch has rated it BB(EXP).
The rating agencies said they understand Wind, a subsidiary of Russian telco VimpelCom, plans to pre-pay senior-secured bank debt set to mature in 2014 and 2015 prior in conjunction with this new transaction. This enables the company to lengthen debt maturity while retaining its current ratio of secured and unsecured debt.
Moody’s said the new notes will bear near identical terms to Wind’s €500m 2018 senior-secured notes, including an incurrence test at 5x (debt/EBITDA) and secured debt incurrence test at 3x (net debt/EBITDA).
Wind is Italy’s third largest mobile operator.
