The company closes €1.65 Bn syndicated loan with high oversubscription
Barcelona, July 29, 2024.- CriteriaCaixa, holding company that manages ”la Caixa” Foundation’s business assets, today completed the syndication of a €1.65 billion loan with the participation of over 20 banks, a deal coordinated and insured by Société Générale as a bookrunner.
The syndication process has achieved a high oversubscription of 2.9x, with requests exceeding €4.65 billion by far. Additionally to Société Générale, the relationship banks that have participated as Mandated Lead Arranger are: Banco Santander, Bank of America, Barclays, BBVA, BNP, Credit Agricole, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Intesa Sanpaolo, JP Morgan, MedioBanca, Natixis, Unicredit and Sumitomo; while Lead Arrangers are: Banc Sabadell, Banco Cooperativo, Bankinter, CecaBank, Deutsche Bank, Ibercaja, KutxaBank and Unicaja.
The new financing is made up of two tranches. In one hand, a €1.15 billion bridge loan with 1-year maturity, extendable to two additional committed periods of 6 months each. If market conditions allow, CriteriaCaixa could access the bond market in the near future to refinance this bridge loan. In the other hand, there is a second tranche of a €500 million credit with a 3-year maturity, optionally extendable to 1 additional year.
The loan allows CriteriaCaixa to finance the investments it has undertaken during the first half of 2024, especially the acquisitions of new stakes in Telefónica, ACS and Colonial, and contributes to CriteriaCaixa starting the second half of the year with comfortable liquidity levels, providing greater financial flexibility to take advantage of new growth opportunities that may arise within its 2025-2030 Strategic Plan, presented last June.
The deal also represents the endorsement by the financial sector of CriteriaCaixa’s new growth strategy and the measures contained in its Strategic Plan. The rating agency Moody’s also endorsed the Plan, revising CriteriaCaixa’s credit rating upwards and raising its long-term issuer rating from Baa2 to Baa1, maintaining the positive outlook.
