The pharmaceutical group Grifols announced yesterday to the National Stock Market Commission (CNVM) that it has closed a private placement of bonds worth 1,000 million euros, which with the sale of its stake in the Chinese Shanghai RAAS they allow it to refinance the debt maturities scheduled for 2025, of around 1,800 million euros, and postpone its next payments to 2027.
In a communication sent to the regulator, the group explained that these are senior bonds or guaranteed by the company's assets, which will bear an interest of 7.5%, with a maturity in 2030. "This transaction represents an important financial milestone ", assures the company, and "underlines the confidence of the financial markets in the solidity of the business and operational resilience of Grifols".
The issue's interest rate, with a differential of nearly 3.5 points above Euribor, is common in medium-sized companies with a high level of debt, such as Grifols itself, and is far removed from the rates of interest that its debt fetched in secondary markets during the weeks it was under attack by bearish fund Gotham City Research, when it was well above 10%. Some analysts, such as XTB's Javier Cabrera, recalled that the company has not explained all the money it has obtained from the issue, and the yield it provides is above nominal. "We don't know if the discount is very wide", he emphasized. The stock market, however, received the news with a 5.25% rise in the stock.
Thomas Glanzmann, executive chairman of the group, indicated in a statement his satisfaction with the agreement "which reflects the strength of our business and the confidence that the debt market has in our financial health" and "improves our structure of capital". Deutsche Bank has been the placement agent for the issue, and Osborne Clarke and Proskauer Rose LLP, Grifols' legal advisors in the operation.
Grifols emphasized to the CNMV that it continues to progress in closing the sale of 20% of its Chinese subsidiary Shanghai RAAS to the Haier group: it will pay 1.8 billion dollars (about 1.6 billion euros) which it will use to reduce the guaranteed debt. The company confirmed that it expects to close this transaction in the first half of the year.
According to data from the rating agency S
