Grubs up

Foodvest has launched syndication of facilities backing Lion Capital‘s buyout of its business, through global co-ordinator JPMorgan and Lloyds TSB, Rabobank, RBS and SG, each joint physical bookrunners across senior and debt, and Nordea as joint physical bookrunner on the senior debt.

Facilities are denominated in sterling and euros and split into a £60m six-year revolver paying 300bp over Libor, a £150m six-year term loan A paying 300bp, a £100m seven-year term loan B paying 350bp, a £240m eight-year term loan C paying 425 and a £180m nine-year mezzanine tranche paying 1,050bp – split between 500bp cash pay and 550bp PIK.

An institutional carve-out accounts for half of the term loan B and half of the term loan C. The carve-out and mezzanine tranche are both denominated only in euros.

A £25m ticket pays 150bp, a £15m ticket 125bp and a £10m ticket 100bp. Tickets are of the pro rata debt across the senior part of the structure.

The deal was launched last Tuesday and a bank meeting was held on August 29.

Leads said an early bird syndication to a group of take-and-hold investors is now in the closing stages, and report a high level of interest in the retail stage. The deal was originally conceived as a sole underwriting, but the group at the top of the deal has been widened to include a number of banks traditionally comfortable with sizeable take-and-hold deals.

Barclays, Calyon and RBC have launched syndication of £222m of debt facilities backing Advent‘s acquisition of care home operator Craegmoor.

Debt is split into a £37.75m seven-year term loan A paying 275bp over Libor, a £47.75m eight-year term loan B paying 350bp, a £47.75m nine-year term loan C paying 400bp, a £15m seven-year revolver paying 275bp and a £30m seven-year capex facility paying 275bp. A £44.25m 10-year mezzanine piece has been preplaced.

Mandated lead arrangers Barclays and RBS have backed Clayton Dubilier & Rice‘s £417m buyout of UK engineering group Bodycote’s testing business BTG with a £250m underwriting.

The deal features an unusually large equity check of 55%. The sale has been made on a cash and debt-free basis. Banks have underwritten the remaining 45% of the acquisition. The price is 20 times the £21m operating profits that the business made last year and leverage is 5x.

Sponsor-backed laboratory services group Capio has mandated Bank of Scotland to arrange debt backing its SFr282m acquisition of Unilabs. The deal is an add-on for the Apax and Nordic Capital backed business.

Debt is split into €375m of senior facilities that have already been placed, €65m of 10-year mezzanine and a €60m PIK tranche.

Last year, Bank of Scotland and Barclays arranged a deal for Capio, which, after a price and structural flex, comprised a SKr625m seven-year term loan A at 200bp over Libor, a SKr3.75bn eight-year term loan B at 225bp, a SKr3.75bn nine-year term loan C at 237.5bp, a SKr1.2bn seven-year capex line at 200bp, a SKr400m seven-year revolver at 200bp and a SKr1.01bn 9-1/2-year second-lien tranche at 400bp. Banks will earn 75bp for SKr275m and 65bp for SKr185m.

Bank of Ireland, Barclays and ING are close to wrapping up syndication of the €190m debt package backing Lion Capital‘s buyout of Benelux region frozen snacks business Advang Holding.

Debt is split into a €55m seven-year term loan A paying 275bp over Euribor, a €45m eight-year term loan B paying 325bp, a €45m nine-year term loan C paying 375bp, a €10m seven-year revolver paying 275bp and a €35m 10-year mezzanine tranche paying 550bp cash and 550bp PIK.

Leverage is 4.3x through senior and 5.4x through total debt.