Flora - comment

Flora has priced its new €400 million senior unsecured bonds at 8.625%. The proceeds will be used primarily to redeem the remaining €300 million of its outstanding senior unsecured bonds, with the remainder allocated for general corporate purposes. The new bonds are rated CCC+ and are pari passu with the existing senior unsecured notes.

This transaction marks the conclusion of our successful investment in Flora/Upfield, pending the expected call of the existing bonds. We had anticipated that Flora might pursue an all-senior secured capital structure, particularly given its prior success in raising senior secured debt to fund earlier partial redemptions. However, it has ultimately opted for a senior unsecured issuance to complete the refinancing.