Successful issue of €500 million 9-year Eurobonds

9. 10. 2019

On 1 October 2019, EP Infrastructure (“EPIF” and, together with its subsidiaries, the “EPIF Group”) rated Baa3/BBB/BBB- by Moody’s, S&P and Fitch, respectively, successfully extended its maturity through EPIF’s longest international offering to date, with a new €500 million 9-year bond issue priced at MS + 225p or 2.045% yield.

Following investor marketing conducted earlier in 2019, €600 million 7-year bond transaction issued in July 2019 and recent H1 2019 financials release, EPIF opted for a one-day placement strategy, having announced the target €500 million size and commencing bookbuilding from the morning.

Such approach allowed EPIF to fully benefit from the strong market environment, leading to a high quality orderbook peaking at €1.5 billion during the day, and the new bond issue priced at zero new issue premium.

The placement saw a diverse distribution reflecting the expansion of EPIF’s credit investor base. German and Austrian investors took up the majority of allocations (43%), followed by accounts from the United Kingdom (17%), Switzerland and Benelux (12%), France (9%), Spain and Portugal (5%), CEE (5%), the rest of Europe (7%) and Middle East (2%).

Long maturity of the new bond was well received by institutional investors that took up 91% of the issue, with asset managers taking up 82% and insurance and pension funds being allocated 9%. The remaining 9% was taken up by banks.

The new transaction establishes EPIF as one of the most active CEE corporate credits on bond markets and further smoothens the EPIF Group’s debt maturity profile. The placement also marks the tightest yield achieved by a privately-owned CEE corporate issuer in 9-10 year maturities.

Filip Bělák, Finance Director of EPIF, stated: “Success of this well-distributed placement is a testament to our continued engagement with international investor community, a process EPIF will remain committed to”.

Gary Mazzotti, Vice chairman of the Board of Directors of EPIF, commented that “Very pleasing to place our third Eurobond in the last 18 months, the EPIF Group now has bonds expiring in 2024, 2026 and 2028. The EPIF Group has an extremely well defined yield curve and is well positioned as a significant investment grade credit, both within the Energy Infrastructure segment and within the regions in which we operate. The capital structure strategy of the EPIF Group, as outlined to our key stakeholders, is in place and the EPIF Group is well positioned for the future.”

Citi, Commerzbank, Erste Group, SMBC Nikko and Société Générale 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 one of the largest and the most important piped gas corridors 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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