South African media group Naspers has hit the market with a proposed senior unsecured dollar-denominated bond offering. The notes will be issued by subsidiary Myriad International Holdings with Barclays and Citigroup understood to be lead bookrunners…
South African media group Naspers has hit the market with a proposed senior unsecured dollar-denominated bond offering.
The notes will be issued by subsidiary Myriad International Holdings with Barclays and Citigroup understood to be lead bookrunners and coordinators on the deal.
The size of the offering has not been disclosed but Naspers is expected to use proceeds to repay borrowings under its US$2.25bn revolving credit facility, due 2018.
With the bonds like to have a tenor of between seven and 12 years, the financing will also extend the group’s maturity profile. Naspers currently has US$700m and US$1bn of senior unsecured bonds due 2017 and 2020 respectively.
For the financial year ending 31 March 2015, Naspers’ leverage increased from 4.8x to 6.7x debt to EBITDA. According to ratings agency Moody’s, this was due to lower adjusted EBITDA, down from R8.1bn to R7.5bn, due to increased development spend, and higher adjusted debt levels, from R39.1bn to R49.9bn, a result of debt funded investments in its ecommerce businesses.
However, because of its holdings in those fast-growing e-commerce businesses, China-based Tencent Holdings and Mail.ru Group of Russia, Moody’s continues to rate the company at Baa3.
Naspers owns South African DTH provider Multichoice, which has experienced robust growth over the past couple of years, aided by its dominant market position. The satellite broadcaster is increasingly looking to expand its presence across the Sub-Saharan Africa.
