Aryzta gets the green light for amendment to financial covenants

Expand

Aryzta is best known here for the Cuisine de France brand. Photo: Leon Farrell/Photocall Ireland.

Ellie Donnelly Twitter Email

September 28 2020 08:49 AM

Swiss-Irish food group Aryzta has received permission from the majority of its lenders for an amendment to its financial covenants.

This will provide it will increased headroom over the next year to deal with the continuing uncertainty around and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, a statement from the group said.

The amendment will apply to the two covenant tests relating to the interim financial statements as of January 2021 and to the annual financial statements of July next year.

In each case, the net debt to earnings before, interest, taxation, deprecation and amortisation (EBITDA) coverage ratio shall be lower or equal to six times and the net interest coverage ratio shall be greater than one times.

Earlier this month Urs Jordi was elected chairman of the group in a dramatic extraordinary general meeting for the group.

The EGM came on the back of a months-long campaign by activist investors - led by Switzerland's Veraison and Spain's Cobas - for control of the Swiss-Irish business.

The company, which is best known in Ireland for its Cuisine de France brand is also a global supplier of burger buns to McDonald's.

Long-standing debt and strategic challenges were compounded this year by the Covid-19 pandemic.