MOSCOW (MRC) -- Umicore (Brussels, Belgium) says it has launched an offering of senior unsecured bonds of EUR500 million (USD563 million), maturing in June 2025 and convertible into Umicore ordinary shares, as per Chemweek.
“The net proceeds of the offering will be used for general corporate purposes and to fund Umicore’s strategic developments in the areas of clean mobility materials and recycling,” the company says.
This offering complements the EUR1.1 billion of medium- and long-term, fixed-rate private placement debt secured in recent years and will further strengthen and diversify Umicore’s funding structure, the company says. The settlement date is to be on or about 23 June 2020, Umicore says.
The bonds will not bear interest and will have a value of EUR100,000 in principal amount and integral multiples thereof, the company says. They will be issued at 100% of their principal amount and unless previously converted, redeemed or repurchased, and canceled, they will be redeemed at 100% of their principal amount on 23 June 2025, Umicore says.
Groupe Bruxelles Lambert, Umicore’s largest shareholder, has indicated its intention to participate in the concurrent equity offering, the company says. The final terms of the bonds will be announced once the book-building process is completed, Umicore says.
As MRC wrote before, in September 2018, Brenntag North America, Inc., part of the Brenntag Group, was appointed as the exclusive distributor of Valirex catalysts for unsaturated polyester resins (UPR) and Valikat catalysts for polyurethanes from Umicore Specialty Materials Brugge NV in the USA and Canada. "The Umicore UPR & PU catalyst product lines are an exciting addition to our ACES (Adhesives, Coatings, Elastomers, Sealants) portfolio," said then Ted Davlantes, ACES Director for Brenntag North America. "Distributing these products in North America will enable our team of technical sales professionals to meet the demands of new product development and the challenges of new regulations."
Besides, in December 2012, materials technology group Umicore and the Evonik Group subsidiary Evonik Litarion GmbH announced a business relationship for the supply of lithium-ion cathode materials.
We also remind that Dow and Evonik have recently entered into an exclusive technology partnership. Together, they plan to bring a unique method for directly synthesizing propylene glycol (PG) from propylene and hydrogen peroxide to market maturity.
Propylene is the main feedstock for the production of polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, PP shipments to the Russian market totalled 347,440 tonnes in January-April 2020 (calculated by the formula production minus export plus import). Supply exclusively of PP random copolymer increased.
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