Meridian Energy to enter retail bond market in early 2010

Tuesday 29th September 2009

Meridian Energy will enter the retail bond market for the first time in the first quarter of 2010, in its first offering of long term retail bonds.

The exact size of the Renewable Energy Bonds issue has yet to be determined.

The company is also planning to reopen its short term Renewable Energy Notes once the company's annual report has been tabled in Parliament, around mid-October, the company's chief executive, Tim Lusk, told a Meridian profit briefing today.

Rated BBB+ by Standard & Poors for long term debt and A2 for short term, Meridian is reviewing its capital management strategy following a strong improvement in its key credit rating metric, EBITDAF interest cover, which was well above target at 5.9 times.

Meridian is also making a special dividend capital return of $150 million on top of a $113.9 million ordinary dividend, as a result of this.

Meridian currently has $124 million of the renewable energy notes on issue, all with maturities of less than 18 months and paying between 5% and 5.25%, and wants to maintain funds at around that level.

The company has not previously issued retail bond instruments.

Businesswire.co.nz

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