The banks that finance Rcs have found an agreement for amend the publishing group's debt arrangements. News that soothes spirits in view of the RCS shareholders' meeting which on Thursday should give the green light to a 400 million capital increase. The new terms of the agreement will be signed by the company in the next board meeting, which was already scheduled for tomorrow. Meanwhile, this morning in Piazza Affari the RCS stock lost more than half a point.
The agreement provides that the total of the three credit lines will rise from 574 to 600 million euros, with the average annual cost down from 610 to 480 basis points (thus with a discount of 130bps, lower than the 250bps requested by RCS in the light of the new market conditions after the discount rate cut). Agreement also on the revision of the minimum increase threshold to obtain the green light from the banks for the new credit lines: 380 million euros will be enough, or those for which the increase is already guaranteed.
Final details are still missing on the last point of the agreement, which should be defined today. The question is about the portion of the early repayment of the debt to be paid to the banks with the proceeds of the increase: up to now there has been talk of 225 million, but RCS would like to reduce the sum to below half of the increase. At stake is the consent of some shareholders to the entire operation.
The relative majority shareholder, Joseph Rotelli, with a strong 16,8% stake, will release its reserves only tomorrow, on the immediate eve of the shareholders' meeting. It is unlikely that Edizione Holding (Benetton group) and Diego Della Valle will have a second thought – respectively with around 6 and 8% of the share capital – who have already announced their negative vote some time ago. The position of the uncertain (see Pesenti group) and of outgoing shareholders, such as Generali (certainly aligned, at the time of the vote, with Mediobanca) is different. But the real tip of the balance remains the Rotelli group, which seems to be oriented towards yes.
