Cemex makes substantial progress in Its Refinancing plan
Cemex announced today that it has made significant progress towards extending debt maturities originally scheduled for 2009. CEMEX had previously communicated that it had selected five banks to coordinate a global effort to i) negotiate new long-term syndicated bilateral facilities to replace existing short-term bilateral facilities, ii) extend the maturity by one year of a portion of the US$3bn Rinker acquisition syndicated loan facility due in December 2009 and iii) amend the leverage ratio covenant, among other conditions, of certain existing syndicated loan facilities.
For each of the initiatives described above, we have as of today made the following progress:
i) Received confirmation from the creditors to refinance close to
US$2.2bn in bank loans maturing throughout 2009 and early
2010. The final maturity for the amounts refinanced will be February
2011.
ii) Received confirmation from the creditors that intend to extend close
to US$1.5bn of the US$3bn syndicated loan facility due
in December of 2009.
iii) The necessary consent of the relevant bank lenders to amend, among
other conditions, the leverage ratio covenant in our existing
syndicated loan facilities, as communicated on December 15, 2008,
was duly executed on December 19, 2008. This consent is now
unconditional.
The refinancing process remains ongoing for maturities not yet committed to be extended.
Our net interest expense for the first half of 2009 is expected to remain flat versus the same period in 2008, at about US$500m, as higher spreads for our US dollar and Euro denominated debt, plus a higher interest expense resulting from our partial shift to Mexican peso-denominated debt, are being substantially offset by lower average base rates and our floating interest rate strategy.
The implementation of the refinancing and extensions is subject to obtaining the necessary commitments from the financial institutions and to the satisfactory completion of final documentation and satisfaction of customary conditions precedent by January 31, 2009. Published under Cement News
