AbitibiBowater Financing Bonanza (ABH)

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

AbitibiBowater Inc. (NYSE: ABH) is seeing shares surge after the open this morning.  The paper and wood products company secured a financing pact that it had made a filing for earlier.

The company noted that this refinancing plan will fulfill its upcoming liquidity needs and will provide "sufficient financial flexibility."  The total refinancing plan is roughly $1.4 billion.  While the company is now based in Canada, the following terms are in U.S. Dollars:

  • $400-500 million of new 364-day senior secured term loan secured by working capital and other assets;
  • $400 million new senior secured notes or a term loan due 2011 secured by fixed assets;
  • $200-300 million of new equity or equity-linked securities of AbitibiBowater Inc.

The company will start an exchange offer for some $500 million of the near-term maturities and will close out the maturities that were coming due in April, June, and August.

Shortly after the open, shares are up 17% at $11.81, which is above when the company announced its intent to refinance its debt and well above the $9.10 low that was recently put in.  As far as a post-merger performer, this has been a disaster as the high was $37.45.

Jon C. Ogg
March 7, 2008

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

Continue Reading

Top Gaining Stocks

CBOE Vol: 1,568,143
PSKY Vol: 12,285,993
STX Vol: 7,378,346
ORCL Vol: 26,317,675
DDOG Vol: 6,247,779

Top Losing Stocks

LKQ
LKQ Vol: 4,367,433
CLX Vol: 13,260,523
SYK Vol: 4,519,455
MHK Vol: 1,859,865
AMGN Vol: 3,818,618