Comcast Raising $4 Billion In Bond Sale To Refinance Outstanding Debt

Jill Goldsmith
·2 min read

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Media giant Comcast is selling $4 billion worth of notes and will use the proceeds to pay down existing debt. The company revealed the plans in a pair of SEC filings Wednesday.

The parent of NBCUniversal is offering three tranches of notes for, respectively, $1.5 billion, $1.7 billion and $800 million. It said it “intends to use the net proceeds from the offerings entirely for the refinancing of outstanding debt.” That includes redeeming notes due in January 2022 for $700 million, notes due in August 2046 for $1.43 billion. and “certain of its other debt securities with near term maturities.”

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Entertainment companies have been raising cash a brisk rate over the past few months to provide a cushion as their businesses are hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic. To that end, Comcast raised $4 billion in late March. With interest rates low, several companies have recently indicated that they will, or may, use proceeds from debt sales to refinance — on more attractive terms. In this case, Comcast is putting the entire package into paying down existing debt early.

Last month, Comcast posted mixed results for the quarter ended in March and warned of a major hit to current second-quarter results due to COVID-19. NBCUniversal’s theme parks and TV and film production have been shuttered, all live sports postponed and the Olympic Games in Tokyo pushed from this August to next.

Earlier in May, NBCUniversal announced a major restructuing and realigment of its businesses, which includes the newly launched Peacock streaming service.

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