Moody’s downgrades Global Blue, loans to B1

Moody's Investors Service said it downgraded Global Blue Finance Sarl’s corporate family rating (CFR) to B1 from Ba3 following the company's announcement that it refinanced its credit facilities through an amend and extend waiver and will distribute €301 million to its shareholders.

The agency also downgraded the company's probability of default rating to B2-PD from B1-PD, as well as the rating of the senior secured instruments of Global Blue Acquisition BV, a fully owned and guaranteed subsidiary of Global Blue, to B1 from Ba3.

At the same time, Moody's withdrew the Ba3 rating of Global Blue Acquisition's senior secured term loan A, following its full repayment as part of the transaction.

All ratings have a stable outlook.

These actions conclude the review for downgrade initiated on Nov. 19 following the company's announcement of an amendment and extension of its credit facilities.

Moody’s said the action reflects the completion by Global Blue of a refinancing of its existing credit facilities and the introduction of a new term loan C. The transaction involves incremental debt of €233 million. Also, as part of this transaction, the company will make a sizeable cash distribution (around €300 million) to its ultimate shareholders, Silver Lake and Partners Group.

Pro forma of the transaction, Global Blue's gross debt/EBITDA ratio (as adjusted by Moody's) increased to around 4.3 times, compared to the previous expectation of a ratio in the region of 3 times to 3.5 times.

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