Wimm-Bill-Dann Foods, a Russian producer of dairy, beverage and baby food products, has mandated ABN Amro, Calyon and ING Bank to arrange a US$250mn syndicated term loan facility.
Syndication was launched on March 7, and the funds raised will be used to refinance the borrower's long-term Eurobond which matures on May 14, 2008, as well as general corporate purposes.
The deal is the borrower's debut syndicated facility. It has a tenor of three years, with repayment due in bullet form. The margin is 1.75% over Libor per year.
WBD has three core business areas -a dairy segment, a beverage unit and baby food products. During the first nine months of 2007, 75% of the group’s sales were generated by its dairy division. Beverage sales made up 18% of total sales, and baby food accounted for 7% of sales.
As of February 26, 2008, the company’s market capitalisation stood at US$5.05bn.
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