NH Hotel Group Capitalizes on Business Performance to Succesfully Accelerate its Refinancing Process

. October 10, 2016

MADRID, SP. October 10, 2016 - NH Hotel Group has successfully closed two financial transactions with the aim of endowing the Company with a more flexible maturity debt structure for the coming years.

After three years immersed in executing its business plan, under which the Company has segmented its hotel portfolio bybrand, focused strategically on its establishments in the upper-upscale segment, invested €200 million to reposition its hotels and standardise quality for each brand, reinforced its management and organisational capabilities, and streamlined its portfolio by exiting non-core assets and renegotiating its lease agreements, NH Hotel Group has improved its positioning, currently boasting a higher revenue base, substantially higher EBITDA and a significant drop in its leverage ratio.

Successful completion of the refinancing process

The Company has taken advantage of its improved business and financial performance and leveraging the current favourable market conditions, has accelerated its refinancing process through a bond issue and a long-term syndicated credit facility.

Specifically, the Group has issued $320 million of senior secured notes due in 2023, on more advantageous terms than those obtained on the notes issued in 2013: the 6.875% coupon carried by the 2013 notes has been cut to 3.75% on this issue. As a result, the Company has settled the borrowings due in 2017 and 2018 ahead of maturity, simplifying its capital structure by using the proceeds to repay bank debt.

In parallel, under the umbrella of this same transaction, the Group has equipped itself with greater financial flexibility by raising a $280 million syndicated revolving loan; this three-year facility can be extended by a further two years subject to refinancing the bonds issued by the Company in 2013 and due 2019.

Credit rating upgrades

This momentum has also been evident in the corporate rating upgrades recently announced by the leading credit rating agencies. More specifically, Standard & Poor's assigned a B rating (with a stable outlook), reflecting this agency's view that the Group will further lift its business performance while continuing to control costs, liquidity, working capital and cost management. Meanwhile, Moody's has assigned the Company a corporate family rating of B2, thanks to the healthy progress being made on execution of its business plan, improved liquidity and a focus on asset-light operating formula. In line with these recent issuer rating upgrades, Standard & Poor's and Moody's have assigned ratings to the new issue that are two notches above their respective corporate ratings (Standard & Poor's: BB-; Moody's: Ba3), thanks to the quality of the assets pledged as collateral.

About NH Hotel Group

NH Hotel Group (www.nh-hotels.com) is a world-leading urban hotel operator and a consolidated multinational player. It operates approximately 400 hotels and almost 60,000 rooms in 29 countries across Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia, including top city destinations such as Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Bogota, Brussels, Buenos Aires, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, London, Madrid, Mexico City, Milan, Munich, New York, Rome and Vienna.

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