Wolseley agrees new £820m credit facilities

BUILDING supplies group Wolseley has agreed two new revolving credit facilities worth a combined total of £820m.

The facilities will last just over five years each and be used for general corporate purposes, replacing existing committed bank facilities of approximately £1.6bn which were due to mature by August 2013.

The new facilities have been structured to enable Wolseley’s relationship banks to participate and consist of a European facility of £654m and an American facility of £165m. The facilities are on essentially the same commercial terms.

The move to current market pricing would save Wolseley, which has operations in the West Midlands, approximately £12m per year, it said today.

Unamortised arrangement fees of £7m would be written off this year as consequence of cancelling the surplus facilities, it added.

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At the end of April this year, the group’s adjusted net debt was £824m.

The European Facility was co-ordinated by Barclays, Danske and Crédit Agricole and the US facility was jointly lead by Bank of America Merrill Lynch and PNC.