ECL Entertainment allocates incremental loan; Altice France brings amend, extend to market

By Sara Rosenberg

New York, Jan. 19 – ECL Entertainment LLC allocated its incremental first-lien term loan B on Thursday after a quick syndication process that began with a launch on Wednesday morning.

Also, Altice France approached lenders in the morning with an amendment and extension of its U.S. and euro term loans.

ECL wraps loan

ECL Entertainment allocated its fungible $35 million incremental first-lien term loan B due April 2028 on Thursday afternoon, according to a market source.

An updated trading level was not put out on the term loan B post allocation, but it has been quoted at par bid for a while and through syndication of the incremental term loan, so the expectation is that the market on the debt will remain unchanged, the source said.

Pricing on the incremental term loan B is SOFR+CSA plus 750 basis points with a 0.75% floor and it was sold at an original issue discount of 99. CSA is 11 bps one-month rate, 26 bps three-month rate and 43 bps six-month rate. Like the existing term loan B, the incremental loan has 101 hard call protection through October 2024.

Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC is leading the deal that will be used with excess cash and contributed land to fund a joint venture investment and a distribution to shareholders.

In connection with this transaction, pricing on the existing term loan B will transition to SOFR from Libor plus 750 bps with a 0.75% floor.

ECL is a regional gaming company.

Altice holds call

Altice France emerged in the morning with plans to hold a lender call at 11:30 a.m. ET on Thursday to launch an amendment and extension of its existing $1.42 billion term loan B due July 2025, $2.15 billion term loan B due January 2026, $2.5 billion term loan B due August 2026, €1.145 billion term loan B due July 2025 and €1 billion term loan B due January 2026, a market source remarked.

The term loans will be extended into new U.S. and euro term loans due August 2028 that are talked at SOFR/Euribor plus 550 bps with a 0% floor and 101 soft call protection for one year.

The extended U.S. and euro term loans that are currently due in 2025 are talked with an original issue discount of 97, and the extended U.S. and euro term loans that are currently due in 2026 are talked with a discount of 98, the source continued.

Current pricing on the 2025 U.S. term loan is SOFR plus 275 bps, current pricing on the U.S. January 2026 term loan is SOFR plus 368.75 bps, current pricing on the U.S. August 2026 term loan is SOFR plus 400 bps, and current pricing on the euro term loans is Euribor plus 300 bps.

Altice lead banks

JPMorgan Chase Bank is the active bookrunner on Altice France’s extended U.S. term loan, with Barclays, Credit Agricole, Natixis, Societe Generale, Morgan Stanley Senior Funding Inc., BofA Securities Inc., Citigroup Global Markets Inc., ING and RBC Capital Markets acting as passive bookrunners. BNP Paribas Securities Corp. and Goldman Sachs are the euro active bookrunners, with Barclays, Credit Agricole, Natixis, Societe Generale, Morgan Stanley, BofA Securities, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, ING and RBC acting as passive bookrunners. JPMorgan is the agent.

Commitments for the U.S. debt are at 5 p.m. ET on Wednesday, commitments for the euro debt are due at noon ET on Wednesday and allocations are targeted for Jan. 26, the source added.

Concurrently with the extension of the term loans, the cable, telecommunications and entertainment company is extending its revolving credit facilities to January 2028.

The company plans to use €224 million of cash on the balance sheet to pay transaction fees and expenses.

Net secured leverage after the transaction is 4.5x.

Fund flows

In other news, actively managed loan fund flows on Wednesday were negative $74 million and loan ETFs were positive $95 million, market sources said.

The tracking estimate for Thursday night’s weekly Lipper numbers for loans are inflows totaling $75 million.

Leveraged loan funds are tracking only their second mild inflow in 32 weeks, sources added.

Loan indices rise

IHS Markit’s iBoxx loan indices were stronger on Wednesday, with the Leveraged Loan indexes (MiLLi) closing out the day up 0.16% and the Liquid Leveraged Loan indices (LLLi) closing out the day up 0.18%.

Month to date, the MiLLi is up 1.98% and the LLLi is up 2.27%.

Average secondary market bids in the U.S. on Wednesday were 92.40, up 0.04% from the previous day and up 0.57% year to date.

According to the IHS Markit data, some of the top advancers on Wednesday were AOT Bedding’s June 2020 new money first out term loan at 96.86, up from 93.67, Anastasia’s August 2018 covenant-lite term loan B at 79.75, up from 78.10, and WestJet Airlines’ December 2019 term loan B at 94.67, up from 92.75.

Some top decliners on Wednesday were LogMeIn’s August 2020 covenant-lite term loan B at 53.50, down from 55.03, Revlon’s November 2020 additional covenant-lite term loan B2 at 45.38, down from 46.25, and Akorn’s October 2020 exit term loan at 79.83, down from 81.25.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.