LONDON (Reuters) – EG Group, the petrol forecourt and retail company that last week sold its UK operations to supermarket Asda, will seek to amend and extend its banking loans, it said on Thursday.
EG and Asda, Britain’s third-largest grocer, are both owned by brothers Zuber and Mohsin Issa and private equity group TDR Capital.
“The group has already initiated a process with key relationship banks seeking both an extension of its RCF (revolving credit facility) and banking facilities, and has received good support in this process,” EG said.
EG sold its UK and Ireland business to Asda for an enterprise value of 2.27 billion pounds ($2.84 billion).
The group said proceeds from that deal, $1.4 billion from an earlier sale and leaseback transaction in the United States and reduced capital expenditure will enable it to reduce net debt from $9.801 billion in March 2023 to $5,375 billion – reducing net leverage from 6.3 times to 4.9 times.
For the three months to March 31, EG’s fiscal first quarter, it reported EBITDA of $228 million on a constant currency basis, on revenues of $7.2 billion, which it said was in line with management expectations.
($1 = 0.7987 pounds)
(Reporting by James Davey, Editing by Kylie MacLellan)