Virgin to issue £750m bond
VIRGIN Media yesterday announced a £750m senior secured notes issue.
The 10-year bonds will be made available in a private placement.
The notes will rank on an equal footing with Virgin Media’s senior credit facility and its existing senior secured notes due 2018.
Virgin intends to use the notes’ proceeds to refinance a portion of its bank debt, thereby improving its debt maturity profile.
The pricing of the notes, which will be denominated in dollars and pounds, will be confirmed today.
Moody’s yesterday assigned a Baa3 rating to the notes.
It said the rating “reflects the fact that the transaction is neutral to net debt and does not change Virgin’s Ba1 corporate family rating.”
Virgin is the UK’s second largest pay TV provider. It last week announced fourth quarter revenue up 6.6 per cent to £1bn, ahead of a company supplied poll forecasting £992m. Operating cash flow was up 9.9 per cent to £404m, also ahead of forecasts.
It sold 44,100 new broadband products to customers and 12,100 new TV services, taking the average revenue per user up 4.9 per cent to a new record £47.51p. Cable customer net additions for the full-year were 76,600.