The pharmaceutical group Grifols has announced today to the National Securities 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 company Shanghai Raas will allow it to refinance the debt maturities scheduled for 2025, of about 1,800 million euros, and their next payments are pushed to 2027.
In a communication sent to the regulator, the group explains that the bonds will accrue an interest of 7.5%, with a maturity in 2030. “This transaction represents an important financial milestone,” says the company, and “underlines the confidence of the markets financial in the solidity of the business and the operational resilience of Grifols.”
The interest rate of the issue, indeed, with a differential of around 3.5 points above the Euribor, is common in medium-sized companies with a high level of debt, such as Grifols itself, and is very far from the interest rates that reached its debt in the secondary markets during the weeks that it was a victim of attacks by the bearish fund Gotham City Research, when it greatly exceeded 10%. Deutsche Bank has been the placement agent for the issue and Osborne Clarke and Proskauer Rose LLP have been Grifols’ legal advisors.
Thomas Glanzmann, executive president of the group, said 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 capital structure.”
Grifols highlights to the CNMV that it continues to make progress in closing the sale of 20% of its Chinese subsidiary Shanghai RAAS to the Haier group, and assured that the proceeds of 1.8 billion dollars (about 1.6 billion euros) will be used to reduce its secured debt. The company confirmed that it anticipates that this transaction will close in the first half of 2024, as planned.
According to data from the rating agency S
