Event Publicly Available Information:
On June 16th 2017, Noble Group Ltd (“Noble”) entered into an agreement with lenders to the $2.03bn Noble Americas Borrowing Base Facility (the “BBF”) to, among other things, extend the maturity of the facility by 120 days. 100% of the lenders agreed to this extension according to PAI.
Sources of Publicly Available Information
https://www.debtwire.com/intelligence/view/2453252
https://www.ft.com/content/5d0366f8-5282-11e7-bfb8-997009366969?mhq5j=e3
https://www.reuters.com/article/noble-accounts-idUSL3N1JD3DX
The extension of maturity directly results from a deterioration of creditworthiness and the financial condition of Noble (Section 4.7 b iv) as evidenced by:
Moody’s downgrade 15 May 2017
Banks poised to determine Noble’s fate FT 6 June 2017
Noble Group is said to asks lenders to extend facility Bloomberg 5 June 2017
Loan facility guaranteed by Noble Group Ltd
According to the 2016 annual report, Noble Group reported utilised $5.2bn bank facilities for the group at 2016 year end (page 12 of 2016 annual report – “Of the US$10 billion in bank facilities, US $5.2 billion was utilised”). $1,922mm bank facilities were utilised by Noble (in its capacity as the parent company (page 63 of 2016 annual report)) leaving $3.3bn utilised facilities at subsidiary level. Noble guaranteed $3,402mm utilised facilities (page 140 of 2016 annual report) of its subsidiaries therefore all utilised facilities at subsidiary level were guaranteed with the difference due to the exclusion of $71mm guarantee of the CAL group (page 148 of the 2016 annual report). At 2016 annual report Noble had $350mm drawn under the BBF due in May 2017 and $1,198mm utilised as trade finance instruments trade (page 133 of the 2016 annual) therefore the BBF was utilised at 2016 and was part of the utilised facilities that were all guaranteed by Noble at subsidiary level.