High Liner launches $250 million term loan B at Libor plus 550 bps

By Sara Rosenberg

New York, Dec. 5 - High Liner Foods Inc. held a bank meeting on Monday, launching its $250 million term loan B (B2) with price talk of Libor plus 550 basis points with a 1.5% Libor floor and an original issue discount of 98, according to a market source.

The B loan has 101 soft call protection for one year.

RBC Capital Markets and BMO Capital Markets are the lead banks on the deal.

Commitments are due on Dec. 15.

Proceeds will be used to help fund the $230.6 million acquisition of Icelandic Group's U.S. subsidiary and Asian procurement operations and to repay an existing roughly $47 million term loan.

As part of the transaction, the company plans on increasing its existing asset-based credit facility to $180 million from $120 million.

Closing is anticipated to occur late this year or during the first quarter of 2012, subject to customary conditions, including regulatory approvals.

Near-term synergies are expected at $12.1 million, and total ongoing annual synergies are expected to be in the range of $16 million to $18 million.

The company previously said that leverage would be reduced to about 3.8 times on a pro forma basis adjusted for the expected near-term synergies and seasonal debt levels.

In addition, the company's annual revenue on a pro forma basis would be about $900 million for the last 12 months ending September 2011 with pro forma-adjusted EBITDA of about $94 million, including near-term synergies.

High Liner is a Lunenburg, N.S.-based frozen seafood company. Icelandic's U.S. subsidiary is a supplier of seafood to the U.S. food service market.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.