[NEW YORK] Froneri International, the maker of Haagen-Dazs ice cream, is wrapping up commitments for a debt deal to help fund one of the largest shareholder payouts on record, as its private equity co-owner looks to keep its stake in the company for longer.
The UK-based manufacturer is close to pricing a 3.9 billion euros junk debt offering, the proceeds of which will fund a roughly 4.4 billion euros (S$6.6 billion) payout to shareholders Nestle and private equity firm PAI Partners.
The distribution, known as a dividend recapitalisation, is among the largest so far this year. A hefty US$4.5 billion dividend to the private equity owners of car battery maker Clarios International got funding in January.
With such recapitalisations, private equity firms tack on debt to a portfolio company to fund a payout. Sponsors have come to utilise the strategy to return money to investors as typical exits, such as a sale or initial public offering, have slowed.
PAI is nearing a transfer of its 50 per cent shareholding to a new fund that would enable the private equity firm to hold onto its stake in Froneri for longer, Bloomberg reported last month. Buyout firms have increasingly turned to continuation vehicles to deal with a backlog of unsold investments as dealmaking has slowed over the past few years.
PAI bought UK-based R&R Ice Cream in 2013 and combined that business with part of Nestle’s ice cream empire to create Froneri in 2016.
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Banks, including Barclays and UBS Group, are close to pricing 2.8 billion euros of loans and 1.1 billion euros of bonds on Wednesday (Jul 16), with expectations the deal will land tighter than initial discussions.
The 900 million euros leveraged loan is expected to price at three percentage points over the benchmark rate and at a discount of 99.75 US cents on the US dollar, according to sources with knowledge of the matter.
The 1.9 billion euros USD-equivalent term loan is expected to price at 2.5 percentage points over the benchmark and at a discount of 99.75 US cents on the US dollar, said separate sources, all of whom asked not to be identified discussing private information.
The euro and US dollar tranches of the bond were set to price to yield about 4.75 per cent and 6.125 per cent, respectively.
Representatives for PAI, Nestle and Barclays declined to comment. Representatives for Froneri and UBS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The debt will be used alongside 540 million euros of cash on the balance sheet to fund the distribution, according to Moody’s Ratings.
Moody’s downgraded Froneri one notch deeper into junk after the company launched the debt offering, citing the addition of the roughly 3.9 billion euros debt “to fund an extraordinary dividend to shareholders”.
The US leveraged loan market recently had its most new launches in a day since January. The US high-yield bond market has also had an influx of borrowers, with June the market’s busiest month since September 2021. BLOOMBERG
