Successful €600 million issue of 7-year Eurobonds

30. 7. 2019

On 23 July 2019, EP Infrastructure (“EPIF” and together with its subsidiaries, the “EPIF Group”) rated Baa3/BBB/BBB- by Moody’s, S&P and Fitch successfully placed its longest international offering with a new 7-year €600 million priced at MS + 185p or 1.698% yield.

Through this bond issuance, EPIF was able to benefit from the current favorable conditions in the international debt capital markets in order to extend its debt maturity profile and optimize cost of its borrowings, which fully reflects the EPIF Group’s strategy. This transaction further raises EPIF profile in the international capital markets by providing a new liquid point to investors and extending its curve.

The transaction was multiple times oversubscribed, with a book peaking at EUR 2.3bn highlighting the strong demand from new European Investment grade investors in addition to the support and high level of confidence from EPIF existing investor community.

This enabled EPIF to achieve very attractive terms, with a pricing flat to the issuer’s curve, with zero new issue premium, while matching the company’s funding needs.

Filip Bělák, Finance Director of EPIF, stated on feedback received: “During the process we obtained positive and constructive feedback from investors on the company’s strategy and stable business model, as well as on our commitment towards ESG trajectory, a key investment criteria to European investors.”

Gary Mazzotti, Vice chairman of the Board of Directors of EPIF, in response to achieved results commented that “this new bond fits very well with EPIF commitment to ensure that app. 70% of EPIF debt is concentrated at parent level.”

With this transaction EPIF obtained the best pricing outcome on the yield basis ever achieved by a CEE Corporate on a 7-year EUR-denominated bond offering.

The new bond offering saw a high-quality and well-diversified investor demand, with 31% being allocated to German/Austrian investors, UK accounts taking up 22% of the final book, France – 13%, Spain/Portugal – 9%, Switzerland – 7%, Italy – 7%, Rest of Europe – 8% and Rest of World – 3%. Asset managers were allocated 79% of the final book, with Banks/Private Banks, Insurance/Pension Funds and Hedge Funds/Others taking up the rest (12%, 7%, and 2%, respectively).

Citi, HSBC, ICBC Standard Bank, Societe Generale and UniCredit were the Joint Bookrunners on the transaction.

About EP Infrastructure

The EPIF Group is a European energy infrastructure utility focused on gas transmission, gas and power distribution, heat and power generation and gas storage. With principal operations in the Slovak Republic and the Czech Republic, the EPIF Group is a unique European entity with a large and diversified portfolio of strategically important infrastructure assets. Measured by EBITDA, the EPIF Group believes it is among the five largest industrial groups based in the Czech Republic.

The EPIF Group highlights

• The EPIF Group holds approximately a 49 per cent. stake in, and has management control over, Eustream. The transmission network of Eustream is part of the Central Corridor which is the largest and the most important piped gas corridor for deliveries of Russian gas to Western, Central and Southern Europe.
• The EPIF Group is an important gas and electricity distributor in the Slovak Republic and is the leading distributor of heat to final consumers in the Czech Republic.
• The EPIF Group holds the largest gas storage capacity in the region of Slovakia, Czech Republic and Austria.

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