Hart chases $2.4 billion loan

Graeme Hart. Photo / Dean Purcell

Reynolds Group Holdings, the packaging company owned by New Zealand billionaire Graeme Hart, will meet lenders in New York on July 11 as it seeks to fund its US$1.68 billion acquisition of Graham Packaging.

Reynolds Group will finance the bid with US$2 billion ($2.4 billion) of new senior debt, and will seek to amend the terms on another US$2 billion of term loans under an existing credit agreement, the company said in a statement distributed by Business Wire yesterday.

Reynolds Group said on June 17 that it plans to borrow as much as US$5 billion to pay for Blackstone Group LP's Graham Packaging, prompting Moody's Investors Service and Standard & Poor's to consider cutting its ratings deeper into junk.

The company led by Hart, New Zealand's richest man, is buying Graham to gain a plastic-container company with customers such as PepsiCo, maker of Gatorade and Tropicana beverages.

Reynolds, a unit of Hart's Rank Group, will pay Graham investors US$25.50 a share for the York, Pennsylvania-based plastic-container maker. That's equal to about US$4.5 billion with the assumption of Graham's debt.

Moody's has said it would review its B2 ranking on Reynolds Group for possible downgrade and Standard & Poor's said it would consider cutting its B+ rating after the acquisition was announced.

- Bloomberg