7 August 2024
LEI: 213800T8RBBWZQ7FTF84
Cordiant Digital
Infrastructure Limited
CRA refinances long-term
senior credit facilities
Refinance completes the terming out
of CORD's debt: no refinances required until June 2029
Cordiant Digital Infrastructure
Limited ("CORD"), the operationally focused, specialist digital infrastructure investor, is pleased to announce a long-term refinancing of senior
credit facilities at its portfolio
company, České Radiokomunikace a.s.
("CRA"), with a syndicate of leading international
and local banks, securing CZK 5.0 billion (c. £167
million equivalent) of senior financing, maturing in August
2030.
The new facilities include a term
loan of CZK 3.9 billion (£130 million) and undrawn revolving credit
facilities of CZK 1.1 billion (£37 million). The lending consortium
comprises Citi, ING, Société Générale1,
Raiffeisenbank2, Erste Group3 and PKO Bank Polski. CRA's pro forma net
leverage ratio4 following this refinancing remains under
3.0x.
The new facilities benefit from a
bullet repayment structure and have an opening credit margin of
2.00% over PRIBOR, with the ability to reduce to 1.75% depending on
net leverage. Following the refinancing, 86% of CRA's term debt
remains hedged through an interest swap executed in 2020 and
maturing in March 2025, meaning that the effective all-in interest
rate on the hedged portion of the term loan is 2.76%.
Closing of the new facilities remains subject to
the satisfaction of a small number of administrative conditions
precedent and is expected to occur shortly.
The new term loan facility of CZK
3.9 billion will be used to repay CRA's existing term loan of the
same amount, put in place in 2020. The revolving credit facilities
are available to fund new investments in digital infrastructure by
CRA in the Czech Republic and other strategic markets in the form
of growth capital expenditure and bolt-on acquisitions, intended to
augment CRA's cash generating capacity and support reduction of net
debt over time.
Following the conclusion of this
refinancing, CORD and its portfolio companies have no third-party
debt with a term that matures before June 2029. In the last
eighteen months, CORD has successfully refinanced and significantly
extended the tenors of major debt facilities totalling over £500
million at Emitel, CRA and at the holding company level,
representing prudent balance sheet and risk management.
On a pro forma basis to the figures
disclosed in CORD's annual report and audited financial statements
for the year ended 31 March 2024, following the CRA refinancing and
on the basis that the new revolving credit facilities remain
undrawn, CORD's leverage, measured as net debt divided by EBITDA,
remains at 4.5x5 and, as measured by net debt divided by
gross assets, remains at 38.9%6.
The Company's total available
liquidity disclosed as at 31 March 2024, pro forma for CRA's
undrawn revolving credit facilities and the undrawn capex and RCF
facilities announced on 1 July as part of the fund-level Eurobond
refinancing, would have increased to £328 million.
Steven Marshall, Chairman of
Cordiant Digital Infrastructure, said:
"Following the recent successful
completion of CORD's long-term refinancing, we are delighted with
the support and recognition CRA has received through this debt
raise from leading international and local banks. CRA is a national
champion in the Czech Republic with a strong management team and is
continuing to perform well. We look forward to working with the
company and this group of banks to expand the CRA business in line
with CORD's Buy, Build & Grow model. More broadly, we are
pleased that our portfolio companies have robust balance sheets
with no near-term debt maturities as they look to deliver on their
growth ambitions."
1 Through its Czech subsidiary
Komerční banka
2 Partly through its Slovakian
subsidiary Tatra banka
3 Through its Czech subsidiary
Česká spořitelna
4 Measured as net debt divided by
EBITDA for the year to 31 March 2024
5 Measured as net debt divided by
EBITDA for the year to 31 March 2024
6 Measured as net debt divided by
gross assets as at 31 March 2024
For
further information, please visit www.cordiantdigitaltrust.com
or
contact:
|
Cordiant Capital Inc.
Investment Manager
Stephen Foss, Managing Director
|
+44 (0) 20 7201 7546
|
|
Aztec
Company Secretary and
Administrator
Chris Copperwaite / Laura
Dunning
|
+44 (0) 1481 749700
|
|
Investec Bank plc
Joint Corporate Broker
Tom Skinner (Corporate
Broking)
Lucy Lewis / Denis Flanagan
(Corporate Finance)
|
+44 (0) 20 7597 4000
|
|
Jefferies International Limited
Joint Corporate Broker
Stuart Klein / Gaudi Le
Roux
|
+44 (0) 20 7029 8000
|
|
Celicourt
PR Adviser
Philip Dennis / Ali AlQahtani / Charles Denley-Myerson
|
+44 (0) 20 7770 6424
|
Notes to Editors:
About the
Company
Cordiant Digital Infrastructure Limited
Cordiant Digital Infrastructure
Limited (the "Company") primarily invests in the core
infrastructure of the digital economy - data centres, fibre-optic
networks and telecommunication and broadcast towers -
in Europe and North America. Further details about
the Company can be found on its website
at www.cordiantdigitaltrust.com.
The Company is a sector-focused
specialist owner and operator of Digital Infrastructure, listed on
the London Stock Exchange under the ticker CORD. In
total, the Company has successfully raised £795 million in equity,
along with a debt package that includes a €200m Eurobond with
a consortium of blue-chip
institutions; deploying the proceeds into
five acquisitions: CRA, Hudson, Emitel, Speed Fibre and Norkring,
which together offer stable, often index-linked income, and the
opportunity for growth, in line with the Company's Buy, Build &
Grow model.
About CRA
CRA is a diversified digital
infrastructure company operating mobile towers, broadcast networks,
data centres, a fibre network and "Internet of Things" networks.
The company has a history of offering superior customer service,
increasingly through integrated solutions spanning the spectrum of
digital infrastructure. In January 2024, CRA completed the
acquisition of Cloud4com, a leading cloud services
provider in the Czech Republic and
DC Lužice, a Tier III data centre facility strategically located in
the "digital Danube" triangle, that is centred on
Brno-Vienna-Bratislava.
About the Investment
Manager
Cordiant Capital Inc ("Cordiant") is
a specialist global infrastructure and real assets manager with a
sector-led approach to providing growth capital solutions to
promising mid-sized companies in Europe, North America and selected
global markets. Since the firm's relaunch in 2016, Cordiant, a
partner-owned and partner-run firm, has developed a track record of
exceeding mandated investment targets for its clients.
Cordiant focuses on the next
generation of infrastructure and real assets: sectors (digital
infrastructure, energy transition infrastructure and the
agriculture value chain) characterised by growth tailwinds and
technological dynamism. It also applies a strong sustainability and
ESG overlay to its investment activities.
With a mix of managed funds offering
both value-add and core strategies in equity and direct lending,
Cordiant's sector investment teams (combining experienced industry
executives with traditional private capital investors) work with
investee companies to develop innovative, tailored financing
solutions backed by a comprehensive understanding of the sector and
demonstrated operating capabilities. In this way, Cordiant aims to
provide value to investors seeking to complement existing
infrastructure equity and infrastructure debt
allocations.
