Asklepios successfully issues Schuldschein loan agreement worth EUR 730 million

Asklepios Kliniken GmbH & Co. KGaA has successfully placed a Schuldschein loan agreement worth EUR 730 million on the market. Due to high demand, the transaction was oversubscribed several times over and the original target volume of EUR 200 million was increased significantly. The placement is thus one of the biggest transactions on the Schuldschein market so far this year.

The issue forms part of Asklepios’s long-term financing strategy, which is particularly geared towards ensuring the security and availability of financing by means of a balanced medium- to long-term maturity profile and financial flexibility while also optimising the costs of capital. A large part of the funds generated will be used for the early repayment of the acquisition financing that Asklepios had borrowed in connection with the RHÖN-KLINIKUM AG transaction.

“During the first wave of infections in the COVID-19 pandemic, the Schuldschein market was temporarily considerably subdued. As the markets then thawed, we seized the opportunity to bring a relatively large Schuldschein loan agreement onto the market,” says Hafid Rifi, CFO of the Asklepios Group. “With terms of 5 to 20 years and an average duration of 7.2 years, we have also achieved a very good, long-term result.”

Since 2010, Asklepios has been increasingly involving the capital market in its corporate financing, and it enjoys a good reputation among investors in Germany and abroad as a long-standing issuer.

“We are delighted with the high demand from both existing investors and new investors, which demonstrates that Asklepios represents an attractive investment opportunity,” comments Benedikt Brörmann, Manager of Corporate Finance at Asklepios. “This is also shown by the share of the issue volume attributable to international investors, which came to around 45% and was thus higher than in any of our previous Schuldschein transactions.”

The placement of the Schuldschein loan agreement was managed by Bayerische Landesbank, BNP Paribas, Commerzbank Aktiengesellschaft, DZ BANK AG and Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen Girozentrale as the joint lead arrangers.