DUBLIN-BASED packaging multinational Ardagh is seeking to borrow $410 million (€322 million) in the bond markets to fund three acquisitions, including two previously unannounced transactions.
The company, which is controlled by businessman Paul Coulson, is seeking to raise $160 million in additional borrowing on a bond due in 2017 that was issued in 2010 and a further $250 million on a new bond maturing in 2020.
The further borrowing will bring the debt owing on the bond issued in 2010 to $375 million.
The fresh debt together with cash on Ardagh’s books will be used to fund further acquisitions, the company said. The borrowings will finance the company’s recently announced €85 million acquisition of the Boxal group of companies, the European division of Exal, the world’s biggest aluminium can producer.
It will also fund the purchase of two businesses which are not connected to Boxal, if Ardagh reaches agreement to buy them. The company did not identify the businesses but said public announcements will be made as necessary.
“We are presently in advanced discussions with the relevant vendors for the purchase of two other unrelated businesses, which are active in the sectors in which we operate,” the company said.
A spokesman for the company would not comment beyond a statement on the latest bond offering as the company was on a roadshow seeking investors in the debt.
Ardagh said it was in discussions with an unnamed large financial institution to refinance up to €150 million under a new trade receivables securitisation programme.
The company said revenues in the fourth quarter of 2011 were “broadly in line” with the same period the previous year.
Earnings before interest, depreciation, tax and amortisation were lower “by a high single-digit percentage” compared with that period in 2010, the company said.
Capital expenditure for the full year will be lower than in 2010 “by a low double-digit percentage”.
The new bond offering is the company’s biggest borrowing in the debt markets since 2010 when the company raised €1.7 billion to purchase Impress, Europe’s second-largest can manufacturer.
That acquisition transformed Ardagh’s business, pushing the glass company into the metal packaging business and almost trebling the size of the company.
Mr Coulson owns 33 per cent of Ardagh, which started as the Irish Glass Bottle company and was delisted from the Irish Stock Exchange in 2002. Its shareholders include financial institutions and private individuals.
Ardagh employs 14,000 people in 25 countries, operates 88 manufacturing plants and has annual sales of more than €3.2 billion.
The company’s clients include AB InBev, Coca-Cola, Del Monte Foods, Diageo and Heineken.
