CRH seeks to refinance $650m of debt through bond sale

CRH has launched a bond sale in the US as it seeks to refinance $650 million (€596m) of expensive debt ahead of schedule.

The group's CRH America Finance unit is planning to sell hundreds of millions of dollars of 10-year and 30-year bonds in the market through a deal organised by bankers in Citibank, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland's NatWest and Wells Fargo Securities.

At the same time Ireland’s largest publicly-quoted company launched an offer to buy back “any and all” of CRH America Finance’s bonds that are due to mature in July of next year and carry an annual interest rate, or coupon, of 8.125 per cent.

The deal was launched on Tuesday as Moody’s, one of the world’s largest credit ratings firms, upgraded its stance on CRH’s creditworthiness by one level to Baa1, which is still seven levels below its top-notch Aaa rating.

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Moody's said that CRH's move to reduce its debt burden since it carried out its almost €8 billion of deals in 2015, including the €6.5 billion purchase of assets from European peers Lafarge and Holcim, has been "impressive".

It noted that a surge in earnings as a result of the deals helped the group cut its debt to 2.8 times earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation at the end of last year from 4.1 in 2015.