Crucially, HeidelbergCement said Hanson would guarantee HeidelbergCement’s debt until all of Hanson’s dollar bonds, which will remain outstanding, have matured – or until 2016.
Meanwhile, HeidelbergCement will guarantee Hanson’s bonds. It said the end result would be that the two company’s obligations would rank equally.
"Thereby HeidelbergCement will be able to utilise a simpler debt structure appropriate to an investment-grade corporate," the company said.
The plans pushed the cost of insuring Hanson’s debt sharply higher, closer to that of insuring HeidelbergCement’s debt, and led Standard & Poor’s to affirm its rating on Heidelberg and Moody’s Investors Service to equalise its ratings on the two companies.
