Mexico: Cemex prepays 2017 maturity in credit agreement

Cemex has prepaid US$373m, corresponding to the September 2017 amortisation under the facilities agreement of 29 September 2014.

Some US$664m of currently-funded commitments maturing in 2018 have now been exchanged into a revolving facility, maintaining their original amortisation schedule and the same terms and conditions. The company says that the new revolving facility will provide it with additional flexibility to optimise the use of proceeds from asset sales and free cash flow, while it continues to proactively manage its debt profile.

"We remain fully committed to reach our debt reduction and leverage ratio targets and are encouraged by the progress so far. With this prepayment, mainly made by applying the recent proceeds received from asset sales and free cash flow generated since 30 September, we have now reduced over US$3bn of total debt plus perpetuals since December 2014, which represents approximately a 19 per cent reduction.

"Under Cemex's Credit Agreement, the expected improvement in our leverage ratio by December 2016 would result in a further reduction in the applicable spread, declining to 300bps from 350bps as of December 2015," said José Antonio González, Cemex's chief financial officer. "We now have no relevant maturities through March 2018. We are confident that we continue moving forward with our efforts to reach investment grade metrics."

With this initiative the total amount of commitments under revolving facilities in the credit agreement has increased to US$1.4bn, including US$664m under this new revolving facility maturing in 2018 and US$749m with final maturity in 2020.