Messer, the world's leading privately owned specialist for industrial, medical and specialty gases, has privately placed $1.1 billion USD of Senior Notes with institutional investors.

Proceeds were mainly applied to the full refinancing of a USD-denominated bridge facility taken up for the acquisition of all shares in Messer Industries from minority owner CVC Capital Partners last year. Remaining proceeds will be applied to general corporate purposes. 
The transaction is divided across 7-, 10- and 12-years tranches with a weighted-average fixed-rate coupon of 5.64%. As a result of strong investor demand, the issuance was several times oversubscribed. 
Helmut Kaschenz, Chief Financial Officer of Messer, said: “With the private placement, we have successfully concluded the first step of our take-out financing, only shortly after the closing of the acquisition of all shares in Messer Industries, the previous joint-venture with CVC. When returning to the private placement market, we appreciated the strong confidence in our business and the long-term orientation of investors, some of which are well-known to Messer for a very long time.” 
BNP Paribas Securities Corp., BofA Securities, Inc. and J.P. Morgan Securities LLC acted as Joint Lead Placement Agents for the private placement. 

Disclaimer
This notice is for information only, does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any security and shall not constitute an offer, solicitation or sale of any securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.  This notice is not for distribution or release in or into Australia, Canada, Japan or the United States of America (or to U.S. persons), or in any other jurisdiction in which offers or sales of securities would be prohibited by applicable law. The securities of Messer have not been and will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Act”) and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements of the Act.