USA – Save A Lot, an American discount grocery store chain headquartered in Missouri, has received US$350 million in new capital to support the company’s operations and acceleration of its transformation plan.
The company, which recently announced the successful completion of a comprehensive recapitalization of the business and significant deleveraging of the company’s balance sheet, said that the financing was an important step in securing its long-term success.
The grocery store chain revealed that it had completed debt-for-equity and debt-for-debt exchanges that eliminated about US$500 million in debt and provided an infusion of US$350 million in new capital from a combination of new and existing lenders.
The refinancing is part of the Save A Lot’s agreement with majority of its lenders that the retailer reached in January aimed at recapitalizing the business and deleveraging its balance sheet.
Under the previously announced terms of the agreement, Save A Lot was to receive US$138 million in new capital to strengthen the business and provide financial flexibility and benefit from a reduction of indebtedness of over US$400 million.
Kenneth McGrath, CEO of Save A Lot said that with the completion of the recapitalization, the retailer is moving forward with a substantially stronger financial foundation as it continues to execute its transformation plan
“Our ability to achieve this outcome through a fully consensual and out-of-court agreement is a significant achievement and reflects the confidence of our new owners and lenders in our business model and long-term growth prospects.
“We thank our vendors and retail partners for their trust and support throughout this process and we look forward to continuing to work closely with them into the future.”
Save A Lot is owned by Canadian private-equity firm Onex Corporation and operates 14 distribution centers and has a retail network of more than 1,100 stores in 33 states, with the vast majority of the locations licensed by independent grocers.
