Swisse owner: Goldman Sachs' affiliated banks invited to finance $350m loan taken by H&H
This will entail the involvement of other parties besides Goldman Sachs — which remains the loan's mandated lead arranger and book-runner — to provide the funds needed to substantiate the loan.
An insider source has revealed that H&H sent invitations exclusively to Goldman Sachs' affiliated banks to contribute the loan amount.
Parties that accept the invitation will have access to three ticket levels: those who commit over $75m can earn a participation fee of 1% in interest, those who commit $50m to $74m can earn 0.85%, and those who commit $25m to $49m can earn 0.7%.
We recently reported on H&H (owner of Swisse Wellness) signing the loan agreement with Goldman Sachs through its indirect subsidiary Biostime Healthy Australia Investment, which consists of a $350m three-year loan and $50m revolving credit facility, denominated in both US and Australian dollars.
The three-year loan is meant to refinance a $450m facility taken in 2016 — also a three-year loan denominated in US and Australian dollars — with the revolving credit facility to go towards working capital and general corporate activity.
Goldman Sachs, alongside the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, were the mandated lead arrangers and book-runners for that loan, whose purpose was to refinance a 12-month $450m bridge loan secured the year before to support H&H's 2014 acquisition of an 83% stake in Swisse.
Following the acquisition, H&H (then known as Biostime) purchased Swisse in 2016 for $1.7bn, after strong competition from other Chinese firms.
