Equinix Plans to Borrow 750M Euro Through Senior Notes

Global data-center service provider Equinix Inc. EQIX recently announced plans of its public offering of €750-million aggregate principal amount of senior notes. The notes are slated for maturity in 2024. The company has filed for registration under the Securities Act of 1933.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPM, Citigroup C, BofA Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, MUFG, RBC Capital Markets, TD Securities and Wells Fargo Securities are acting as book-running managers for this purpose. HSBC, ING and Barclays PLC BCS are acting as joint global coordinators and joint book-running managers.

Equinix, along with the underwriters, will determine the interest rate and offer price. The offering will be "made under an automatic shelf registration statement on Form S-3 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC")", the company stated in its press release.

The company intends to use the net proceeds from this offering for general corporate purposes, including meeting the working capital requirements, acquisitions, capital expenditure and other strategic transactions.

Notably, this will be the company's first senior notes offering in 2018. Last year, Equinix had commenced three offerings of combined worth of €3.25 billion.

Though the Fed has been raising interest rates for the past year, borrowing costs are still very low, enabling companies to obtain easy financing. Furthermore, we believe the company has been offering senior notes at the right time as the Fed is likely to raise interest rates much faster than previously anticipated.

However, escalating interest expenses due to increased debt burden may dampen the company's profitability. It should be noted that at the end of 2017, Equinix had cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments of $1.441 billion, while the total debt principal outstanding was $10.17 billion as of Dec 31, 2017.

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