Evotec SE places first Schuldschein (Promissory note) worth € 250 m

 

  • PROCEEDS TO BE USED FOR GENERAL CORPORATE FINANCING INCLUDING FINANCING OF JUST.BIO ACQUISITION, EXPANSION, AND REFINANCING
  • STRONG PERFORMANCE AND OUTLOOK OF THE COMPANY APPEALS TO DEBT INVESTORS AND RESULTS IN SIGNIFICANT OVERSUBSCRIPTION OF ORDER BOOK AT HIGHLY ATTRACTIVE TERMS

 

Hamburg, Germany, 26 June 2019:
Evotec SE (Frankfurt Stock Exchange: EVT, MDAX/TecDAX, ISIN: DE0005664809) announced today that the Company successfully issued a Schuldschein (promissory note) of € 250 m on the capital market. The Schuldschein was placed with a fixed and variable interest rate of on average below 1.5 percent over 3, 5, 7, and 10 years maturity. Following high demand from debt investors, which led to a significant oversubscription of the order book and attractive credit spreads, the initial target volume of € 100 m could be successfully increased to € 250 m.

Evotec intends to use the proceeds of this Schuldschein to strengthen its corporate financing structure as well as to finance the recent Just.Bio acquisition, the expansion of its business and to re-finance certain loans at more attractive terms.

Lead arrangers of this debt transaction, which represents Evotec’s first promissory note in Company history, were Deutsche Bank AG and Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (“LBBW”). The loan was placed with a range of institutional investors in the banking and insurance sector, primarily international private banks, savings banks, regional banks (Landesbanken) and cooperative banks based in Germany.

Enno Spillner, Chief Financial Officer of Evotec, commented: “Being a fast-growing, profitable biotech company, we’re very excited to be able to apply a different method of financing at such low cost of capital. In this case we utilised our solid balance sheet to leverage debt in a conservative manner while avoiding equity dilution which is common for our branch, to support the further sustainable development of our Company. This successful debut issue of a Schuldschein at very attractive terms confirms the trust and confidence investors place in our business model and we’re determined to continue our profitable growth path of prior years.”

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS 

Information set forth in this press release contains forward-looking statements, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties. The forward-looking statements contained herein represent the judgement of Evotec as of the date of this press release. Such forward-looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees, but are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control, and which could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in these forward-looking statements. We expressly disclaim any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any such statements to reflect any change in our expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based.