New £300m revolving credit facility for Drax
Drax Power Station says it has completed the refinancing of its revolving credit facility.
The new £300m facility matures in 2025, with an option to extend by one year.
It replaces the current RCF which matures in 2021 and provides increased liquidity, enabling the full facility to be drawn as cash (the previous facility restricted cash drawn to support liquidity to £165m). The facility is currently undrawn for cash.
Drax has also agreed a change to the Group’s £35m term-loan facility, maturing in 2022, in order to simplify its capital structure.
On 14 September 2020, Drax confirmed it had agreed a new infrastructure term-loan agreement that provided committed facilities of approximately £160m with a range of maturities between 2024 and 2030.
These facilities extended the Group’s maturity profile while also reducing the cost of debt. Drax has now drawn £28 million, with the balance to be drawn by February 2021.
The agreement also included an option for a further £75m. Under this option Drax has now agreed £53m maturing in 2028, which will be drawn in December 2020.
On 4 November 2020, Drax issued €250m of Euro denominated senior secured notes which mature in 2025. The effective Sterling-equivalent interest rate is 3.24% per annum.
Proceeds from this issuance, along with existing cash flows, are being used to redeem the Group’s £350m 2022 Sterling bond and £125m ESG term-loan facility.
