Moody's rates Picard obligations

Moody's Investors Service said it assigned a Caa1 rating to Picard Bondco SA's planned €310 million of guaranteed senior unsecured notes due 2027, a B3 to Lion/Polaris Lux 4 SA's 's guaranteed new senior secured floating-rate notes and a B3 rating to Picard Groupe SAS' guaranteed new senior secured fixed-rate notes, both due 2026. The companies will sell €1.4 billion of the floating-rate and fixed-rate notes.

Picard Bondco’s B3 corporate family rating and B2-PD probability of default rating of remain unchanged. The stable outlook of Picard Bondco and Picard Groupe remain unaffected. The outlook of Lion/Polaris Lux 4 is stable.

The proceeds and €159 million of balance sheet cash will be used to fully repay the senior secured FRNs and senior unsecured notes, fund a €274 million a distribution to shareholders and pay the call premium on the notes, accrued interest and transaction fees and expenses.

“The proposed refinancing is very similar to the proposed refinancing that the company launched in April 2021 and then decided to cancel to wait for better market conditions. The main differences in the financial documentation are a slightly tighter portability covenant at 6.5x leverage, as defined in the financial documentation, and a new covenant preventing dividends if leverage, as defined in the financial documentation, is above 6.25x,” Moody’s said in a press release.

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