Open access fibre infrastructure provider DFA has secured additional term debt funding of R1,25-billion.
This follows the extension and increase to R1,1-billion of its revolving credit facility in December 2016.
The debt facilities will be used to re-finance a maturing term loan and to finance the continued expansion of DFA’s extensive open-access national metro fibre footprint.
Cilliers Steyn, chief financial officer of DFA, comments: “In a rapidly evolving world, we continue in our mission to provide high quality open-access fibre infrastructure to our broad range of clients.
“Being a capital intensive business, access to funding is vitally important and we are very pleased with the funding support as well as the commitment from our high quality syndicate of lenders, especially in these current difficult capital market conditions.
“We thank our lenders, a number of which have funded us since our inception in 2007, for their continued support. We are also pleased with the vote of confidence from Standard Bank and Sanlam, who have joined our syndicate of term loan providers, and from Govanhill Capital who have arranged the finance,” he adds.
“The new loans, of four- and five-year terms, increase the maturity profile of DFA’s debt funding. The lender syndicate comprises a balance of banks, fund managers and financial companies, namely Absa, Futuregrowth Asset Management, Investec Asset Management, the KZN Growth Fund, Liberty Group, Rand Merchant Bank, Sanlam, Standard Bank and Stanlib Asset Management. The revolving credit facility was provided by DFA’s syndicate of banks, comprising Rand Merchant Bank, Absa and Standard Bank.”
