May 2015 Financial News

TCL repays lenders

May 18, 2015

Trinidad Cement Limited (TCL) has announced that it has repaid all of its previous lenders as of May 14, 2015.

In a release, TCL said at a meeting with shareholders in February, it advised that the Board agreed a set of restructuring terms with lenders, which had two preconditions, the removal of the 20 percent restriction on shareholding and the injection of new equity of at least US$50 million. 

Since then, the preconditions to the restructuring have been achieved and as a result, the company was able to finalise the restructure loans with its 59 lenders on March 30, 2015. That allowed 45 days, until May 14, 2015 to prepay total debts of US $292 million in order to fully benefit from the prepayment discounts to lenders. 

TCL said it secured the funds to repay the lenders from short-term loans in the amount of US$245 million, together with cash from its recent Rights Issue and cash generated from operations. 

The company said it was able to secure a nine-month loan facility from international banks - Citibank and Credit Suisse at an initial rate of LIBOR plus 6.25 percent (a current effective interest rate of 6.53 percent), but subject to a quarterly increase of one percent if it is still in issue. 

TCL said in the coming weeks, it together with Credit Suisse and Citibank will be approaching both the local and international markets to secure longer-term financing that will bring the company to the final stage of the reorganization of the capital structure. 

Some of the immediate benefits from the refinancing are include, debt reduction from prepayment of previous lenders of US$31 million, a reduction in financing costs in the form of quarterly interest savings of up to US$1.7 million and a stronger balance sheet. 

Chairman Wilfred Espinet said, “We are very confident that the capital reorganization, together with the operational changes that are also advancing, have already started to positively impact our shareholder value.

Source:
Newsday
Monday May 18, 2015

http://www.newsday.co.tt/business/0,211340.html