Rural services company Elders says it has completed agreements with its lenders to extend short dated debt for three months, allowing time to refinance the facilities.
The confirmation comes after the company made an "in-principle" agreement from its seven-member consortium of domestic and overseas financiers to extend its short-term debt facilities to September 30 earlier this month.
Under the rollover facility, $334 million was due to mature on June 30.
Elders said today that the debt would be extended from June 30 to September 30.
"The extension has been put in place to provide sufficient time to enable orderly completion of the refinancing of the current financing facilities into a new syndicated facility," the statement said.
Elders said the costs of extending the debt ran to around $10 million before tax.
The increase in interest rate paid is equivalent to an average increase of approximately 300bp above the existing cost of the debt.
Elders said it had sufficient financial capacity for the extension period including current available bank facilities and unrestricted cash of approximately $180 million.
AAP and LOUISE BURKE
