New $1.67bn loan facility for VNU

VNU, the Dutch media and marketing group acquired by a private equity consortium for €8.7 billion earlier this year, is to raise $1.67 billion (€1.3 billion) of new debt through two bond issues due to mature in 2014 and 2016.

The debt package consists of a seven-year €4.316 billion loan, the entire amount of which is expected to be borrowed at closing, and a six-year €574 million revolving credit facility.
 
AlpInvest Partners, The Blackstone Group, The Carlyle Group, Hellman & Friedman, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Thomas H Lee Partners formed Valcon Acquisitions late last year to bid for VNU. Despite resistance from activist shareholder Knight Vinke Asset Management, the takeover bid was finally accepted in May.
 
VNU, whose shares ceased trading on the Euronext Amsterdam exchange yesterday, has also proposed the addition of five members to its supervisory board: Daniel Akerson, a managing director of Carlyle and head of its US buyout team; James Attwood, also a managing director at Carlyle and head of its global telecommunications and media group; Richard Bressler, a managing director and head of the strategic resource group at Thomas H Lee Partners; Lord Clive Hollick, the former CEO of United Business Media who joined KKR in London as a managing director in April; and James Quella, a senior managing director and senior operating partner at Blackstone.
 
VNU will call a shareholders meeting “in due course” to discuss the proposed appointments.
 
Last week, VNU announced that it had acquired Radio & Records, a Los Angeles-based news and information business serving the US radio and record industries, for an undisclosed sum.