SES S.A. announced the successful launch and pricing of a hybrid bond offering in which it has agreed to sell Deeply Subordinated Fixed Rate Resettable Securities for a total amount of EUR 625 million, with a first reset date on 27 August 2026. The notes will bear a Coupon of 2.875% per annum and were priced at 99.409% of their nominal value.
The instrument’s credit ratings are expected to be Ba1/BB with Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s respectively. The hybrid bonds issued by SES are non-dilutive instruments that are expected to receive 50% equity credit by both rating agencies and be classified as equity under IFRS. Proceeds of the issuance will be used for general corporate purposes which includes the possible refinancing of existing hybrid capital instruments.
Concurrently, SES has also announced a capped tender offer for its outstanding hybrid EUR 750 million 4.625% Perp NC2022 at a fixed purchase yield at -0.10%. With this transaction SES has taken advantage of the current attractive market conditions to proactively refinance its hybrid tranche callable in January 2022 well in advance of the first call date.
J.P. Morgan and MUFG Securities acted as Global Coordinators & Structuring Agents, together with BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs International, HSBC, Mizuho Securities as Joint Bookrunners and Intesa Sanpaolo as Co-Lead. The settlement is scheduled for 27 May 2021 and application has been made for the notes to be listed on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange. The securities were placed with a broad range of institutional investors across Europe.
Sandeep Jalan, Chief Financial Officer of SES, commented, “We are pleased to have secured this new hybrid offering which allows us to proactively refinance the nearest hybrid call at significantly more favourable terms.”