Euronext: Successful First Ever Bond Issue The £250 Million Five-Year Bond Will Be Used To Refinance Existing Debt At A Lower Cost

Euronext today successfully launched and priced its inaugural bond issue in Sterling at a very attractive spread, meeting for the first time fixed income investors.

The £250 million fixed-rate five-year bond pays a coupon of 5.125% and was priced to give a spread of 52 basis points over the benchmark Gilt government bond. The overall all-in cost of financing for the company approximately amounts to 23 basis points over Libor.

The proceeds of the transaction will be used to fully refinance at a significantly lower cost the syndicated facility that was set up for the acquisition of LIFFE in November 2001.

This highly successful and significant transaction achieved a diverse and high quality order book with a large number of different investors participating in the deal with the vast majority of demand from UK Fund Managers.

HSBC acted as bookrunner and BNP PARIBAS as well as UBS Investment Banking acted as co-lead managers for this transaction.