Trinity Mirror secures new financing facilities

RNS Number : 3840Z

Trinity Mirror PLC

15 March 2012

 



Trinity Mirror secures new financing facilities to August 2015

We are pleased to announce that the Group has secured new bank facilities to August 2015 ahead of the expiry of the Group's bank facility in June 2013. The committed bank facilities are as follows:-

·          a new £110 million bank facility expiring in August 2015. The new facility is available from June 2013 or earlier if the current facility is cancelled. The new facility reduces to £102 million in March 2014 and to £94 million in March 2015.

·          the current £178.5 million bank facility expiring in June 2013 remains undrawn and has been reduced to £135 million with immediate effect.

·          financial covenants attached to the new  facility are a minimum interest cover of 4 times increasing in steps to 5 times from July 2013 and a maximum net debt to EBTIDA ratio of 2.75 times falling in steps to 2.25 times in January 2015. In addition, there is a cash flow covenant requiring a minimum cash flow, before interest, acquisitions and dividends of £40 million.

As part of this important refinancing process, the Group reached agreement with the Trustees of the Group's Pension Schemes to reduce deficit funding payments for 2012, 2013 and 2014 to £10 million per annum, before reverting to normalised funding payments of some £33 million per annum from 2015.   We thank the Trustees of the Pension Schemes for their support. 

The new bank facility and reduced pension contributions ensure that the Group has sufficient financial flexibility for the foreseeable future.  The cash flow of the Group coupled with the flexibility of the new bank facility ensures the Group can repay £168 million of maturing US$ private placement loan notes which are due as follows:

·          June 2012:         £69.7 million

·          October 2013:    £54.5 million

·          June 2014:         £44.2 million

As part of the agreement with the Trustees of the Group's Pension Schemes, additional discretionary payments can be made by the Group during 2012 to 2014 with mandatory additional contributions required over this period in the event:

·          EBITDA were to be greater than £145 million for 2012 and 2013 and EBITDA were to be greater than £130 million in 2014. In this instance contribution equal to 50% of the excess would be required to the Pension Schemes;and

·          Dividends were declared and paid by the Group. In this instance contributions equal to the dividend payment would be required to be paid the Pension Schemes.

The new bank facility was co-ordinated by The Royal Bank of Scotland plc and Lloyds TSB Bank plc.

Enquiries

Trinity Mirror

Vijay Vaghela, Group Finance Director                                   020 7293 3000

Nick Fullagar, Director Corporate Communications              020 7293 3622

 

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