Bank of China contributes to €0.5 billion EUR tranche of multi-currency, syndicated facility for Melrose Industries plc's acquisition of GKN

Project narrative

On January 17, 2018, a new multi-currency, syndicated M&A committed bank facility was entered into by Melrose Industries plc to assist with the acquisition of GKN. This facility serves to replace a previous bank facility of US$1.25 billion, which was repaid and officially cancelled on April 30, 2018. The new facility included a £1.5 billion multi-currency term loan with a duration of three years and six months (captured via Record ID#99579). In addition, the new facility included a five-year multi-currency revolving credit facility broken up into multiple currency tranches, denominated £1.1 billion (captured via Record ID#99583), US$2.0 billion (captured via Record ID#99584), and €0.5 billion (captured via Record ID#99585). Lloyds Bank and RBC Capital Markets acted as book runners, and BNP Paribas, Bank of China, Barclays, Commerzbank, Crédit Agricole, HSBC, JP Morgan, NatWest Markets, Santander, Standard Chartered, UniCredit, and Wells Fargo were mandated lead arrangers. On 29 October 2018, £663 million of the new term loan was surplus to requirements, and therefore cancelled, because potential change of control clauses of the bonds were not exercised by the relevant bondholders. At December 31, 2018 the drawings on the term loan were £100 million and US$960 million. There was a significant amount of headroom on the multi-currency committed revolving credit facility, as at December 31, 2018. Applying the exchange rates at December 31, 2018 the headroom equated to £1,352 million, which includes an amount available to replace the 2019 bond when it matures, or before.