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| Vimpelcom | |
| Value | $2.2 billion multi-tranche bond issue |
| Bookrunners | BNP Paribas, Barclays Capital, Citi, HSBC, ING, RBS |
| return to the Emerging Europe Deals of the Year index | |
June also witnessed the return to the global capital markets of Russian telecoms company Vimpelcom, which again won plaudits for executing a bumper bond sale against a backdrop of increasing unease over Europe’s debt woes. At $2.2 billion, the multi-tranche deal was the largest ever from a double-B rated CEEMEA credit and the largest from a Russian corporate since 2009 – yet the order book reached $5 billion in barely four hours and the issuer was able to add a $200 million floating-rate piece on the back of reverse enquiry from investors.
It undoubtedly helped that the transaction had been widely expected – investors were aware that Vimpelcom still had a substantial chunk of debt to refinance from its $6.6 billion acquisition of Italian mobile phone operator Wind and other assets of Egypt’s Naguib Sawiris – and built on the success of the borrower’s earlier bond market outing in January, a $1.5 billion deal that also hit the five- and 10-year spots on the curve.
“People had read about the acquisition and they knew about the bridge financing, so they knew that Vimpelcom had to do something, and there was already a lot of knowledge about the company in the market,” says Albert Hollema, group treasurer at Vimpelcom. “So in the end coming back to the market again relatively quickly was a positive because investors recognized the name immediately.”
Nevertheless, he stresses, both Vimpelcom and its six bookrunners were well aware that timing was critical to completing the deal. “We all realized that this window might close very quickly so we decided to close the transaction on the day itself, and looking back that was a very good decision because other parties that were in the market on the same day and decided to go home were not able to close the following day,” Hollema adds.
Fabianna del Canto, director of London syndicate at bookrunner Barclays Capital, attributes much of the deal’s success to Vimpelcom’s commitment and flexibility as an issuer. “They showed their sophistication as an issuer throughout the process,” she says. “They realized that markets were difficult so we did the marketing in an expedited fashion through a conference call, and similarly they were agile in terms of adding the floating-rate tranche.”
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Emerging Europe |
| Polkomtel/Zygmunt Solorz-Zak |
| Global Ports |
| Vimpelcom |
| Russian Railways |
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