Asklepios Kliniken places € 300 million promissory note loan
• Clinic group successfully concludes one of Germany’s largest promissory
note issues in the current year
• Almost six-fold oversubscription reflects strong investor confidence in
business model
• More than 120 international institutional investors secured
The Asklepios Group placed a promissory note loan (“Schuldscheindarlehen”) of €300 million in October. In light of the six-fold oversubscription to the promissory note, the originally planned loan amount was tripled to €300 million. In addition to savings banks, private and cooperative banks, institutional and international investors from Europe, China, Japan, India and other countries accounted for more than a third of the transaction. More than 120 parties invested in total. Together with the bond issued in 2010 and the syndicated loan of €325 million concluded in the middle of this year, the corporate financing of the Asklepios Group is therefore assured for many years to come with a high level of flexibility.
The issuer of the promissory note is Asklepios Kliniken GmbH, the Hamburg-based holding company of the Asklepios Group. For several years, the hospital operator has been consolidating its financing at Group level in order to benefit from its strong position as a leading healthcare corporation in financing as well. The funds generated with the promissory note loan will be used for general corporate financing, and will partially replace the more expensive borrowed capital currently in place.
Long-term focus in Group financing
Stephan Leonhard, Deputy Chairman of the Group’s management and CFO of the Asklepios Group, emphasised: “The strong demand corroborates our strategy of selectively leveraging the favourable interest rates and the high interest, including internationally, in sound German investment opportunities. We are delighted to thus have a trusting working relationship with a broad group of investors beyond the syndicated loan. As an instrument closely related to the capital market, a promissory note loan perfectly fits our strategy of a broad mix in corporate financing, and supplements our public bond and the syndicated loan already in place, which we can now also repay thanks to the higher volume of the promissory note. In addition, more than 75% of the promissory note relates to the fixed interest tranches, which allows us to reduce our interest rate risk while at the same time significantly improving our costs of capital. The long maturity of well over seven years on average is tailored to our long-term asset commitments, particularly in the form of property.”
The total issue volume of €300 million is divided into three tranches with terms of five, seven and ten years, of which the ten-year tranche accounts for around €100 million. The two shorter tranches were offered with both floating and fixed interest rates. The average interest rate for all tranches is 3.5%. The promissory note, which is eligible as collateral for the ECB, is subject to standard market covenants; a subscription share is €500,000 or whole multiples thereof. In particular, in addition to its traditionally conservative financing, the main reason for the high willingness to subscribe and the pronounced confidence in the Asklepios Group on the part of investors was said to be the secure cash flows entailed by its business model.
About Asklepios
The Asklepios Kliniken GmbH Group is one of the leading private operators of hospital and healthcare facilities in Germany. The Group pursues a responsible and sustainable growth strategy geared towards high quality and innovation. On the basis of this, Asklepios has developed dynamically since it was founded more than 25 years ago. The Group currently has over 140 healthcare facilities throughout Germany and employs more than 45,000 people. Around 2.0 million patients were treated in Asklepios Group facilities in the 2012 financial year.