MOSCOW (MRC) -- Nouryon has completed a repricing of its Euro and US Dollar term loans, reducing its annual interest payments by approximately EUR18.5 million, as per the company's press release.
The successful repricing was enabled by the company’s solid financial performance in 2019.
The repricing, which was completed on January 24, covers the company’s currently outstanding EUR1,790 million EUR Term Loan B and USD4,197 million US Dollar Term Loan B, each due October 2025. Interest rates were reduced by 50 basis points on the Euro loan and 25 basis points on the US Dollar loan.
"This has been a very successful repricing with a high level of interest from lenders, reflecting Nouryon’s strong cash generation and growth in EBITDA," said Renier Vree, Nouryon’s Chief Financial Officer.
The repricing follows a previous voluntary debt prepayment of USD110 million (equivalent to approximately EUR100 million) on its US Dollar Term Loan B, made in the fourth quarter of 2019. That amount, combined with scheduled repayments, took the company’s total debt reduction in 2019 to USD143 million (equivalent to approximately EUR130 million).
"We will continue to look at ways to reduce our leverage while maintaining ample liquidity," Vree said. "We will also continue to invest in attractive capacity expansions and selected bolt-on acquisitions to support the growth of our customers," he added.
As MRC wrote previously, in February 2019, Nouryon (formerly AkzoNobel Specialty Chemicals) announced that it would license its innovative continuous initiator dosing (CiD) technology to Karpatnaftochim, Ukraine’s largest polyvinyl chloride (PVC) producer. Nouryon’s patented CiD technology allows PVC producers to increase reactor output by up to 40 percent, improve product quality, and make the production process intrinsically safer - all with minimum capital expenditure.
Karpatneftekhim is one of the largest enterprises of Ukraine's petrochemical complex. Currently, the plant can produce annually 300,000 tonnes of PVC, 200,000 tonnes of caustic soda, about 180,000 tonnes of chlorine, as well as 250,000 tonnes of ethylene and 100,000 tonnes of polyethylene.
According to ICIS-MRC Price report, Karpatneftekhim increased capacity utilisation in December, total PVC production had increased to 23,550 tonnes against 21,700 tonnes in November. Overall PVC production in the country was 240,400 tonnes in January-December 2019, up by 15% year on year.
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