HICL Infrastructure Regulatory News (HICL)

21 Dec 2007 12:15

HSBC Infrastructure Company Limited21 December 2007 PRESS RELEASE 21 December 2007 HICL refinances existing debt with £200m bank facility and completes £14.4m acquisition of interest in Home Office HSBC Infrastructure Company Limited ("HICL"), the listed infrastructureinvestment company, announces today it has refinanced the group's debtfacilities with a five year £200 million facility from Bank of Scotland plc (the"Refinancing") and completed the acquisition of additional equity and interestsin the Home Office PFI Project (the "Acquisition"). The Refinancing provides a £200 million multi-currency facility from Bank ofScotland, for a five year term and replaces the group's previous £135 milliondebt facilities. The debt is on better terms than the previous facilities andinterest rates are partially hedged for the term of the facility. The Acquisition is for 14.14% equity and additional debt interests in the HomeOffice PFI Project, one of the Company's current portfolio investments for afixed cash amount of £14.4 million. Shareholder approval for the acquisition wasobtained at an Extraordinary General Meeting of HICL on 17 December. Fulldetails of the Acquisition were set out in a circular to shareholders dated 20November 2007. Tony Roper, Director, HSBC Specialist Fund Management Limited, HICL's InvestmentAdviser, said "I am very pleased to have completed both the Home Officeacquisition and debt refinancing. I believe the refinancing, with an increasedfacility size in a generally challenging debt market, underlines the strength ofHICL's long term, stable cashflows from a quality portfolio of infrastructureassets." HSBC Specialist Fund Management Limited Tony Roper +44 (0)20 7991 3935 M:Communications: Ed Orlebar +44 (0)20 7153 1523 Tilly von Twickel +44 (0)20 71531541 HSBC Infrastructure Company Limited The Company is a long term investor in infrastructure projects which arepredominantly in their operating phase and yielding steady returns. It was thefirst infrastructure investment company to be listed on the London StockExchange. It manages a portfolio of mostly operational infrastructure projectsand seeks to acquire further investment opportunities. The Investment Adviser to the Company is HSBC Specialist Fund Management Limited (HSFML), whose infrastructure investment team has successfully investedin infrastructure projects since 1997. HSFML is part of HSBC SpecialistInvestments, the infrastructure and real estate investment arm of the HSBCGroup, and is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange