Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Riverdeep Syndication Update

The Irish Independent is reporting that the banks supporting Riverdeep in its acquisition of Harcourt may be able to syndicate some of the debt they financed in the deal. The company had been saddled with over $7.0bill in debt but have reduced the debt by selling their college division for $600m. Credit Suisse the lead bank has sold down their senior debt and is now working on the secondary loan. The company also reaffirmed it will achieve operating efficiencies amounting to $320mm per year within three years from the combination of the operations of Houghton Mifflin and Harcourt.

From the article:
Credit Suisse is in the process of selling down EMPG's €1.7bn second-lien loan, which ranks behind a traditional senior credit facility in terms of security. "We expect this tranche to be fully syndicated by the end of the summer," said Barry O'Callaghan, executive chairman of EPMG in a letter to shareholders. "This demonstrates that, notwithstanding the current issues with credit markets globally, investors have sufficient confidence in our business model and prospects to purchase our debt."

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