The manufacturer, which specialises in fresh prepared foods, announced today (June 13) that it had completed financial negotiations with banks enabling it to pay off some of its debt and extend existing loan agreements.
As a result, Gudmundsson said: “Today's refinancing is a further step forward in strengthening our balance sheet. This affords us greater financial flexibility to execute our business strategy and deleverage the business through profit growth and strong cash flow.”
The cash consists of:
- £150M 8.75% seven-year fixed rate bond;
- £130M bank facilities maturing in October 2016, comprising a £60M term loan and a £70M revolving credit facility;
- £80M receivables securitisation facility maturing in June 2016
The move is understood to be primarily a debt repayment exercise, rather than focusing on direct investment in operations.
Bakkavör recently posted strong first quarter financial figures, claiming its broad product range had enabled it to offset the impact poor weather and the horsemeat saga had on other manufacturers.
Like-for-like sales were up 3% on the same period in 2012, overall revenue rose by 1% to £392.7M and UK revenue had increased by 1.8% on the previous year’s first quarter.