SES S.A. has announced the successful syndication of a €3 billion equivalent acquisition financing package to support the earlier announced agreement for SES to acquire Intelsat S.A..
Prior to the Intelsat deal announcement, Deutsche Bank AG and Morgan Stanley had jointly underwritten a €3 billion bridge funding facility to support SES’s financing requirements as part of the agreement to acquire Intelsat.
According to SES, this €3 billion bridge facility has now been successfully syndicated, with a highly oversubscribed level of commitments, to an international group of banks with which the company has existing relationships, as well as new banks, in the form of a €2.1 billion bridge facility and US$1 billion term loan. The term loan was upsized in syndication on the back of a strong response from the bank group.
The bridge facility serves to provide financing certainty and flexibility in the issuance of bonds. SES’s bridge facility has a tenor of 12 months and can be extended twice by a further six months, while the term loan has a five-year amortising tenor from its draw.
The term loan financing diversifies funding sources for SES, at an attractive rate, and provides flexibility for de-leveraging over time. SES has also agreed to a two-year extension of the €1.2 billion revolving credit facility (signed 26th June 2019), thereby maintaining a fully committed back-up liquidity facility up to 26th June 2028 with a group of 19 banks.
Sandeep Jalan, chief financial officer at SES, said of the funding, “We are delighted to have received overwhelming support of our banking partners in the financing of this important and transformational transaction for SES. The bridge facility provides SES with financing flexibility from a capital markets issuance perspective, while the term loan serves as a source of long-term financing.”
