Bakery firm Aryzta plans to repurchase CHF 74.6 million (€77.7 million) in principal value from its CHF 400 million (€416.7 million) hybrid bond and CHF 45.7 million (€47.6 million) in principal value from its CHF 190 million (€198 million) hybrid bond at a discounted rate.
The transaction, scheduled to settle in October, will be funded from a combination of existing cash resources and the new term loan facility, the Swiss firm noted.
Martin Huber, chief financial officer of Aryzta commented, "Aryzta’s repurchase of CHF 120.3 million (€125.3 million) of its Hybrid Bonds represents the next step in using our improving cash generation performance to rebalance our debt profile and reduce our overall interest costs.
"This decision reflects our continuing confidence in sustaining business improvements and remaining on track to deliver our mid-term 2025 targets."
Annual Report
Last week, the bakery giant reported a 20.9% increase in revenue in its 2022/23 financial year, to €2.12 billion, with EBITDA growing by 57.8% in the period, to €271.3 million.
Organic growth was up from 17.9% to 21.6% for the period, which was mainly driven by pricing (+18.2%), as well as volume growth of 3.5%, driven by increased demand for bake-off products.
According to chairman and interim CEO Urs Jordi, the bread and pastry maker's performance was achieved in a "period of challenging trading, with persistent inflation, cost of living increases, supply chain and energy costs concerns", with Aryzta ramping up its investment in new product innovation over the past 12 months.
Looking ahead to the coming financial year, the Cuisine de France parent expects to see 'further improvement in all key metrics', with mid- to high-teen organic growth driven by volume and price, while EBITDA margin expansion is expected to be supported by growth, efficiencies and cost discipline.
