Tallinn, 2012-12-20 09:43 CET (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Changes in the loans
AS Tallink Grupp announces taking a loan in the amount of EUR 440 million. The financing is arranged by Nordea Bank Finland Plc, DVB Bank, Danske Bank A/S, KfW IPEX Bank GmbH, AS Swedbank, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB and HSH Nordbank. The facility agent is Nordea Bank Finland Plc. The final maturity of the floating interest rate loan is five years.
All of the new loan will be used to repay existing indebtedness. The Group will prepay four of the previously taken loans including the loan taken at the time of acquisition of Silja Line. In addition, all the deferred instalments that were agreed with all lenders in December 2009 will be repaid fully.
In result of this transaction the Group’s repayments in the coming years will be smaller and the overall financial flexibility will improve. In the coming years the contractual annual repayments of all the Group loans and the comparison to the situation before is the following:
| In EUR millions | before | after | change |
| 2013 | 232 | 106 | -126 |
| 2014 | 101 | 106 | 5 |
| 2015 | 144 | 106 | -38 |
| 2016 | 175 | 136 | -39 |
The new loan is guaranteed by the subsidiaries of AS Tallink Grupp: Tallink Sea Line Ltd, Tallink Victory Line Ltd, Tallink Ltd, Tallink Autoexpress Ltd ja Tallinn Swedish Line Ltd. The loan is secured by the mortgages on the ships belonging to these subsidiaries .
In result of the changes in the loans the Group’s interest cost will not change significantly and is estimated to be smaller than in 2012.
Due to early repayment of the loans the arrangement fees of these loans will be written off as they were amortized over the period of the loan. In result the Group will record one off financial expense of EUR 3.2 million in Q4 2012.
Janek Stalmeister
Chief Financial Officer
AS Tallink Grupp
Tel: +372 6409 800
Email: janek.stalmeister@tallink.ee
Harri Hanschmidt
Head of Investor Relations
AS Tallink Grupp
Sadama 5/7. 10111 Tallinn
Tel +372 640 8981
E-mail harri.hanschmidt@tallink.ee