Blackstone, the promoter of mid-tier IT services company Mphasis, has pledged its entire 30.55% stake in the company as collateral under a refinancing arrangement, according to stock exchange filings on Tuesday.
Singapore-based promoter entity BCP Topco IX Pvt Ltd, a Blackstone subsidiary, has pledged its holding to refinance its existing loan, with a fresh facility of up to $550 million from a consortium of global lenders.
The facility agreement, dated May 12, was signed with lenders including Citibank, Barclays, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan and Nomura.
Under the revised structure, the borrower has directly pledged 100% of its holding in Mphasis in favour of Catalyst Trusteeship Ltd, acting as the ‘onshore security agent’ for the lenders. The refinancing replaces a 2021 loan facility of up to $1.1 billion.
The pledged holding comprises 58.3 million Mphasis shares valued at about Rs 13,000 crore as of May 15.
The promoter entity said the new facility was used to refinance the earlier borrowing in full, leading to the release of the previous pledge structure and the simultaneous creation of a fresh pledge in favour of the new lenders.
“To clarify, this disclosure pertains solely to a refinancing of our existing financing arrangements,” the promoter entity said in the filing, adding that the transaction does not result in any change in Mphasis shareholding.
The filing added that proceeds from the new facility may also be used for dividend payments and shareholder distributions by the borrower, apart from refinancing existing debt and meeting transaction-related expenses.
