Flooring group Victoria has bought back almost three times the level of 2024 bonds it had planned to purchase.
The group bought €127.9m of the bonds after initially planning to buy back €50m. This was then increased to up to €200m. It paid €1,040 per €1,000 of bond.
The move came after it raised €500m for 2026 bonds from investors, with half the money ‘solely intended to be deployed on high-quality, near-term acquisitions.’ The bonds were more than seven times oversubscribed.
‘We are delighted with the level of support from bond investors. The offer was heavily oversubscribed, enabling us to not only raise the targeted €250m to help fund acquisitions we expect to complete in the near-term, but also refinance €250m of our existing 2024 bonds – extending the duration of our debt to 2026 whilst significantly lowering the interest rate to a very attractive 3.625%,’ says Geoff Wilding, Victoria executive chairman.
‘The demand from investors was reinforced by the group’s very strong trading over the last 12 months, which saw record operating profits despite the material impact of the lockdowns in the June quarter. The re-organisation and investment undertaken by the group in 2019 has, as planned, delivered a sustainable margin expansion of more than 300bps and the financial outlook for the group remains strong.’
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