Financing in brief top news

The €460m financing backing Wendel Investment’s tertiary buyout of Dutch chemicals company Stahl from Investcorp has launched, through mandated lead arrangers JPMorgan and Lehman Brothers.

Debt comprises a €50m seven-year term loan A, a €105m eight-year term loan B, a €105m nine-year term loan C, a €35m seven-year revolver, a €50m seven-year acquisition line, a €45m 9-1/2 year second lien tranche and a €70m 10-year mezzanine tranche. Pricing is standard

on the senior debt and has not been finalised on the second lien or mezzanine pieces.

Tickets offered are €25m for a fee of 75bp and €15m for 60bp. There is a carve-out of 60% for funds. A bank meeting will take place on Wednesday 7 June and a site visit on the 8 June.

Leverage is roughly 4x senior net debt to Ebitda, 4.8x through the second lien and 5.9 total.

Investcorp bought out Stahl in 2002 with a €240m loan and recapitalised the company to the tune of €225m in 2003.

  • Production Services Network (PSN) has launched a US$342m debt package backing its MBO from Kellogg Brown and Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton Company, through Bank of Scotland.

Senior debt consists of a US$60.5m seven-year term loan A at 225bp over Libor, a US$37.5m 7-3/4-year term loan B at 275bp, a US$37.5m 8-3/4-year term loan C at 325bp and a US$100m four-year revolver at 225bp.

The senior term loans are available in a mixture of US, Canadian and Australian dollars and sterling. The revolver is also a multi-currency, multi-option facility.

Subordinated debt comprises a US$72m senior mezzanine and a US$34.5m junior mezzanine, both have a 9-3/4-year tenor.

Leverage on the senior is 2.6x total net debt to Ebitda, and 4.7x total.

This is based on FY06 forecast Ebitda of US$51.5m (92% of which is contracted).

Tickets of US$50m and US$30m pay 65bp and 45bp respectively.

Headquartered in Aberdeen, PSN is a oil service company providing operations, maintenance, engineering and construction services to oil and gas producing platforms and petrochemical facilities worldwide.

  • Dresdner Bank, Mizuho Corporate Bank and Morgan Stanley are prepping the circa £900m–£1bn loan that supports EQT’s LBO of the contract cleaning elements of Select Service Partner.

EQT and Macquarie teamed up for the £1.8bn LBO of Compass Group’s travel concession business, before EQT split out the taking the airport and railway concession business. Macquarie took the motorway service business Moto.