To help fund its expansion, the Novomatic Group has issued a €500m corporate bond that immediately attracted interest among institutional investors, with the order book being six times over-subscribed.
The bond was marketed through a roadshow that took place in London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Vienna and is divided into €500 units.
The fixed-interest bond has a seven-year life at 1.625 per cent per annum. After the release of the bond, on September 14, around 40 per cent of the take-up was from Germany and the group’s home country, Austria. Of the remainder, 16 per cent was from the UK.
Novomatic’s plans are to use the cash to repay debt and finance further purchases. Its recent activity includes the acquisition of a majority stake in Ainsworth Game Technology in Australia, and the takeover of Casinos Austria in conjunction with a Czech consortium, a move that has run into monopoly problems in Austria, which is being contested in the courts by the group.
