Aryzta to repay remaining €200m of expensive debt

Aryzta, the Zurich-listed baked goods business behind the Cuisine de France brand in Ireland, said on Wednesday it plans to repay the remaining €200 million of its most expensive hybrid debt-equity instruments as it continues to restructure its balance sheet following a tumultuous few years.

The company, which saw its centre of gravity move from Dublin to Zurich in 2020 following a boardroom coup, said last June that it planned to repurchase or repay all of its then €250 million of hybrid euro bonds on a phased basis between 2023 and 2025.

It moved within weeks of to repurchase an initial €50 million of the notes at a 4 per cent discount to their par value. The group has now elected to redeem the remaining so-called perpetual bonds, which carry an interest rate of 6.8 per cent and have no maturity date, at the end of March, well ahead of the original plan.

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The company will still have a further 590 million Swiss francs (€598 million) of hybrid notes, carrying rates of between 3.5 and 5.3 per cent after the euro-denominated instruments are redeemed.

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Aryzta chairman and chief executive Urs Jordi, installed in September 2020 as part of a boardroom overhaul orchestrated by a group of activist investors, oversaw a decision a year later to pay back €172 million of deferred and rolled-up interest on the euro and Swiss-franc hybrid notes.

Aryzta, which was formed in 2008 through the merger of Dublin-based IAWS with Switzerland’s Hiestand International, has sold its its North America and Brazil operations in recent years to reduce debt.