Olam International, a leading global food and agri-business group, says it has secured three committed loan facilities totalling US$5.2 billion ($7.00 billion) on Aug 31.
The three facilities comprise a US$1.2 billion three-year term loan and two 18-month bridge loan facilities of US$2.0 billion each.
The term loan facility will be used for general corporate purposes of the group while the bridge loan facilities will go towards facilitating Olam’s reorganisation plan.
The terms of the three facility agreements include provisions that allow Olam to allocate the facilities to Olam Food Ingredients (OFI), Olam Global Agri (OGA) and Olam International (OIL).
Under the reorganisation plan, the above three groups are the operating groups following the carve-out, separation and demerger and initial public offering (IPO) of OFI.
The term loan and one of the bridge loan facilities have entities from OFI as co-borrowers, while the second bridge loan has entities from OGA and OIL as additional co-borrowers.
“This landmark transaction gives us significant flexibility to allocate financing across our three new operating groups as part of our reorganisation plan,” says Olam’s group CFO N Muthukumar.
All loans are guaranteed by Olam.
Citibank, JP Morgan Chase Bank, MUFG Bank and The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) were senior mandated lead arrangers for the facilities.
HSBC is the facility agent.
Shares in Olam closed flat at $1.60 on Aug 31.
