By Andrea Hargraves 
EDP - Energias de Portugal announced on Wednesday that it wants to buy about 400 million euros up front of its own debt, launching a call for entities and individuals who own it through four instruments with different maturities. The longest term expires in 2024, which means Miguel Stilwell’s company can buy back the debt three years ahead of schedule.
According to the statement sent on Wednesday to the CMVM (Securities Market Committee), this operation is part of a strategy that the company has to reduce this amount. But, according to the same document, this value of 400 million euros is only “indicative” and, in the end, may be exceeded or even defaulted, at the request of debt holders.
“EDP informs that today a call for cash sale offers has been launched for the debt securities identified below, subject to acceptance by the EDP,” in the statement issued today.
According to the same document, these securities identified by the company have a total value of 3.2 billion euros, with maturities between 2022 and 2024 (see table). Therefore, the EDP suggests buying back 12.5% upfront of the debt included in these available instruments.
According to the national quote, “The offerings are part of initiatives aimed at improving the EDP Group’s liability portfolio, using available liquidity to reduce the amount of its total debt as part of the EDP Group’s debt management strategy.”
Between January and March of this year, the company announced that its net debt amounted to 13.1 billion, a growth of 7% compared to the levels recorded in December of last year. In the first quarter of 2020, the company announced that it had done so The lowest value in the last thirteen years, thus saving 35 million euros in benefits.
(News updated with more information)