HG bonds: Fidelity National Information places $5.5B backing debt tender; terms

Fidelity National Information Services Inc., or FIS, today completed a $5.5 billion, six-part public offering of senior notes, as the company launches a concurrent tender offer for bonds outstanding across its funding curve, in multiple currency denominations.

The tender offer is for any and all of FIS' floating-rate notes due 2021 (€500 million outstanding), 0.125% notes due 2021 (€500 million), 3.5% notes due 2023 ($700 million), 3.875% notes due 2024 ($400 million), 2.602% notes due 2025 (£625 million), 5.00% notes due 2025 (about $612 million) and 3.00% notes due 2026 ($1.25 billion). The offer also targets up to $500 million across (in order of acceptance priority) its 4.25% notes due 2028, 3.75% notes due 2029, 4.50% notes due 2046 and 1.50% notes due 2027.

After the company announced its refinancing intentions, Fitch today affirmed the issuer's BBB long-term issuer default rating and assigned the same grade to the proposed notes offering. It revised the outlook to positive, from stable, to reflect successful integration to date for its $42 billion acquisition of Worldpay in July 2019, and "increased scale in a stable, recurring business and strong FCF generation." Fitch noted that the "significant equity component of the deal (90% of the equity purchase price) and the combined entity's ability to generate strong and stable FCF should enable further deleveraging in 2021."

Fitch assessed total debt at about $20 billion, excluding unused capacity under the company's $5.5 billion revolver, and its U.S. dollar/euro commercial paper programs.

Moody's today assigned a Baa2 grade to the proposed notes offering, and the existing rating is BBB at S&P Global Ratings, both under stable outlooks. Moody's noted the financial technology company's diversified revenue base, including via merchant acquiring (30% of 2020 net revenue), banking technology solutions (47% of revenue) and capital markets technology solutions (19% of revenue).

The company's funding costs were lower today relative to when it locked in acquisition financing less than two years ago. In connection with the Worldpay acquisition, FIS in May 2019 placed $1 billion of 3.75% 10-year notes due May 21, 2029, at T+135, alongside €5 billion of notes in six parts, and a £1.5 billion, two-part offering. The 3.75% 2029 notes changed hands yesterday at T+68, or T+86 over the interpolated curve, representing a yield level near 2%. Terms:

Article amended on Feb. 24, 2021 to reflect updated information to the pricing grid.