S4 Capital has announced it has engaged Credit Suisse AG,HSBC Bank and Barclays Bank as lead arrangers for a seven year €375 million ($A600 million) senior secured term loan and in addition a five year £100 million ($A187 million) equivalent multicurrency senior secured revolving credit facility.
This is to refinance its existing €25 million ($A40 million) and US$28.9 million ($A39.1 million) term loans and its €35 million ($A56 million) and €43.5 million ($A70 million) multicurrency revolving credit facilities and to provide approximately £200 million ($A372 million) for general corporate purposes, including to fund the cash element of future mergers, which is typically one-half of overall consideration.
The Company will maintain its policy of maximum net leverage not exceeding 1.5-2x EBITDA.
Since the Company’s last trading update on the first four months of 2021 at its AGM on June 7, 2021, activity has continued at unprecedented levels in May and June, driven both by the post-pandemic rebound in global GDP and the acceleration in digital marketing transformation.
Like-for-like revenue and gross profit (or net revenue) growth both continued at levels beyond expectations. The pattern of first-half profitability and margins remains very similar to the first halves of 2019 and 2020, weighted to the second half. The Company is in the early stages of planning to expand its activities into a third practice area around technology services and to continue to broaden and deepen its content and data and digital media practices in the Americas and Asia- Pacific.
