Slovenian steel maker SIJ considers new bond issue

The size of the issue, its interest rate and other details will be determined depending on market conditions and investor interest, SIJ said in a filing with the Ljubljana Stock Exchange earlier this week.

The purpose of the issue is to diversify the company's long-term financing sources and to improve the maturity structure of existing loans, as well as to finance investments in production technology, including the supply of environmentally-friendly and energy-efficient technology.

SIJ has hired local lender Nova Ljubljanska Banka (NLB) to help it explore investor interest and carry out the planned bond sale.

The steel producer said earlier that its group net profit has soared to 81 million euro ($90 million) in the first half of 2019, from 18.8 million euro profit a year earlier, following the sale of poultry producer Perutnina Ptuj to Ukraine's MHP Group. The SIJ Group used the proceeds from the sale to lower its indebtedness. As a result, the company's net financial debt halved to 165.4 million euro, from 320 million euro at the end of 2018.

The SIJ Group is the largest vertically integrated metallurgical group in Slovenia. Its products hold leading positions on European and global niche steel markets.

($ = 0.903313 euro)