In a pair of announcements made this morning, major Marcellus/Utica driller Southwestern Energy said they are floating $1.15 billion of new IOUs (i.e. “notes”) that are unsecured and due to be repaid in 2026 and 2027. Part of the money will be used to pay off a 2015 loan for $327 million. It appears another part will be used to pay off up to $800 million of notes (a buyback or repurchase of the notes) due in 2020, 2022, and 2025. That is, Southwestern is swapping one form of debt for another. We’ve often observed this behavior in the energy industry–issuing new debt to pay off old debt. Bit of a shell game in our book, but then we’re not high finance people. Apparently this is not an unusual circumstance with large corporations, and nothing to be alarmed about…
In a pair of announcements made this morning, major Marcellus/Utica driller Southwestern Energy said they are floating $1.15 billion of new IOUs (i.e. “notes”) that are unsecured and due to be repaid in 2026 and 2027. Part of the money will be used to pay off a 2015 loan for $327 million. It appears another part will be used to pay off up to $800 million of notes (a buyback or repurchase of the notes) due in 2020, 2022, and 2025. That is, Southwestern is swapping one form of debt for another. We’ve often observed this behavior in the energy industry–issuing new debt to pay off old debt. Bit of a shell game in our book, but then we’re not high finance people. Apparently this is not an unusual circumstance with large corporations, and nothing to be alarmed about…