M&G Finance
Un po di tempo fa chiesi se qualcuno trattava questo piccolo bond subordinato made in Italy emesso dalla Mossi & Ghisolfi, azienda italiana. Il prezzo era mediamente 15 centesimi. Ora c'e' un offerta a 45....Mi stupisco che vecchie volpi come Bosmeld non l'abbiano mai preso in considerazione...
M&G to Repurchase Undated Bonds With Skipped Coupons - Bloomberg
M&G to Repurchase Undated Bonds With Skipped Coupons
By John Glover - Nov 25, 2010 2:58 PM GMT
Thu Nov 25 14:58:46 GMT 2010
Mossi & Ghisolfi International SA, an Italian chemicals company that skipped coupons on perpetual bonds issued before the credit crunch, now wants to repurchase the debt at a 55 percent discount.
M&G will pay 45 cents on the euro for its 200 million euros ($266 million) of subordinated 7.5 percent notes, which were quoted at about 12 cents before the Nov. 22 buyback started, according to the offer document. The company is still paying a “significant premium” to the market price, said Lorenzo Montagna, M&G’s director of corporate strategy in Milan.
M&G issued the unrated bonds in March 2007 with terms that allow the company to suspend coupon payments if it doesn’t pay a dividend to shareholders. The chemicals manufacturer invoked the non-payment clause in each of the last two years as the financial crisis spurred the worst recession in almost a century, after making one payment. That meant at least 30 million euros of coupon payments have accrued, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
“It’s great that they’re alive,” said
Adrian Frost, a fund manager at Artemis Unit Trust Managers Ltd. in London, which holds some of the bonds among the $231 billion of assets managed by its parent Affiliated Managers Group Inc. in Prides Crossing, Massachusetts. “But now we’re going to have to see whether, and how far, the patient can walk.”
The buyback “meets investors’ requests to supply greater liquidity to these securities,” said Montagna. He declined to comment on the non-payment of coupons, the profitability of the company and on the possibility of resuming the payments, and said that M&G isn’t up for sale.
Capital Gain
The company is considering making acquisitions, Marco Ghisolfi, chief executive officer of its polymers unit, said at a conference in Milan this week. Buying other companies is the only way to expand, he said.
Successful acquisitions will increase the value of the shareholders’ equity in the company, meaning a higher price if the company is sold, according to
Jonathan Moore, an analyst at Evolution Securities Ltd. in London. It also signals that resuming dividend payments, which would force M&G to start paying coupons, isn’t a priority for shareholders, he said.
M&G already holds 45.5 million euros of the issue, according to the offer document. All but 2 million euros of these were bought at 45 percent of face value from an investor that’s not identified, the document shows.
Patrick Burton, a London-based spokesman for JPMorgan Chase & Co., which is managing the buyback, declined to comment.
If all the outstanding notes were tendered back to M&G, the issuer would have a capital gain of about 115 million euros, including unpaid interest, according to Bloomberg calculations. The original bond issue, through M&G Finance Luxembourg SA, was managed by Deutsche Bank AG, Bloomberg data show.
M&G is the world’s largest producer of polyethylene terephthalate for packaging and employs more than 3,000 staff, according to its
website.
The tender expires Dec. 3, the offer document shows.
To contact the reporter on this story:
John Glover in London at
[email protected]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Armstrong at
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