Beazer Homes USA has pushed the due date on its major debt back another two years to 2015 as a result of a senior note sale it completed this week.
"This will give us runway all the way until the last half of 2015," said Jeffrey Hoza, Beazer's vice president and treasurer.The Atlanta-based company this week sold $250 million in senior notes due in 2019 with a 9.125% interest rate. The notes were sold to institutional buyers who are exempt from SEC registration requirements. After the costs of issuing the notes, Beazer netted $242 million.
Hoza said proceeds from the sale will be used to buy back $165 million in notes that are due in 2013. After paying a small premium on those notes, there will be some proceeds left for other purposes, he said.
"We think the time was right" to issue the notes, Hoza said. "It was an opportunistic transaction to be able to take out the 2013 notes. This has cleared the runway in a way that allows us to use our cash and reinvest prudently."Beazer has been working for more than a year to restructure its debt in a variety of ways. By the end of its 2010 fiscal year Sept. 30, it had managed to decrease its total debt by $297 million.
Some of the debt moves it made in its 2010 fiscal year, which started Oct. 1, 2009, included selling 34.9 million new shares of common stock, $57.5 million of mandatory convertible subordinated notes, $300 million of senior notes due 2018, and 3 million tangible equity units.
It raised $597 million through those transactions, which it used for debt repurchases, including the retirement of its outstanding 2011 and 2012 senior notes and 2024 convertible senior notes. It also completed an exchange of $75 million of its junior subordinated notes.
Beazer may not be done with its debt perambulations.
First: "We don't have a revolver" line of credit, Hoza said. "At some point we will want to have that available to us."Second, "We have 2017 notes that are secured and callable in 2012 so we may want to go and do something with those, but we don't have to," he said.
