Member Article

Co-operative Group secure £950m refinancing

The Co-operative Group has negotiated a £950m refinancing deal with a group of banks, led by Barclays.

The package will enable the Group to continue to develop its trading operations, which include more than 4,800 retail trading outlets, 106,000 employees and an annual turnover of more than £13bn.

Barclays, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds and Handelsbanken each provided £150m with the Co-operative Bank and Bank of Ireland providing a further £125m and £75m respectively.

Roger Morgan, Treasurer for the Co-operative Group, said: “The Co-operative Group is delighted to have successfully refinanced its core banking facilities for the next five years.

“Given the challenging economic backdrop it was extremely important to work closely with a trusted partner bank to achieve our objectives. Barclays have continuously demonstrated the value of a long standing relationship and their team once again excelled by professionally leading this transaction to a very successful outcome.”

Jim Quantrill, the Relationship Director leading the deal for Barclays said: “Barclays has a long standing and very close relationship with the Group and this over-subscribed financing shows the attraction of the Co-operative brand for funders and a high regard for the business and management team.

“As lead bank, we have shown our capability in providing structuring support, documentary lead and management of the process generally during a complex transaction, these being core strengths of Barclays.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .