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Cologne/Rheinberg, 26 November 2019 – Semper idem Underberg AG, a leading German premium spirits company with a broadly diversified portfolio of established own and distribution brands, successfully placed a new EUR 60 million corporate bond in November 2019. The transaction consisted of a public offering in Luxembourg and Germany, a private placement in selected European countries and a voluntary exchange offer including a multiple purchase option to the holders of the existing 2015/2020 and 2014/2021 bonds. IR.on AG supported the transaction as investor relations and communications consultant.
Overall, the new 2019/2025 6-year bond (ISIN: DE000A2YPAJ3) met with great interest from both institutional and private investors and was clearly oversubscribed. Due to the high demand, the offer period was closed early and the coupon of the new bond was fixed at 4.00% p.a. at the lower end of the proposed range. The first official day of trading on the Open Market of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange was 18 November 2019.
“We are very pleased with the great interest shown by our existing and new bondholders in the new 2019/2025 bond and would like to thank them for the confidence placed in us. In our opinion, the result of the issue impressively proves that we have established ourselves as a reliable partner in the capital market over the past eight years. The success of the transaction is not least the result of the excellent cooperation with IKB and our other consulting teams,” said Ralf Brinkhoff, CEO of Semper idem Underberg AG.
A track record of five corporate bond issues since 2011 with a strong secondary market performance clearly shows that Semper idem Underberg AG had already established itself as a reliable capital market participant. As the company had previously issued four bonds in purely private placements, the main communication challenge was to redirect its capital market communication also towards private investors. Consequently, the company’s website was at the heart of the communication measures. In addition, IR.on AG’s consultants were available to answer questions from the financial press and existing and new bondholders on the phone.
The complexity of the issue structure was another challenge; it comprised a public offering of Underberg’s new 2019/2025 bond in Luxembourg and Germany, a private placement in selected European countries and an upstream exchange offer for two existing bonds with a regular maturity until 2020 and 2021, respectively, and, hence, different exchange premiums. The challenge was to transparently communicate this structure to existing and potential investors via the website, press relations and numerous one-on-one meetings.
Semper idem Underberg AG will use the net proceeds from the issue of the new bond for the early refinancing of the 2015/2020 and 2014/2021 bonds, which will be repaid prematurely on 19 December 2019.
Besides IR.on AG, the transaction was supported by IKB Deutsche Industriebank AG as sole lead manager and bookrunner and Noerr as legal advisor.
