On 5 May 2014 listed childcare and education centre operator G8 Education Limited announced the establishment of a Multicurrency Debt Issuance Programme to issue both unsecured medium term notes and perpetual securities. The programme has a limit of S$500m (approximately A$432m).
The S$500m programme will allow the issue of securities in any currency with various tenors with the Notes able to be issued in fixed, floating, variable or hybrid interest rates. The perpetual securities may be issued with fixed or floating interest.
For accounting purposes the Notes will be treated as debt with the perpetual notes treated as equity. As such any Notes raised under the programme will rank pari passu with the FIIG originated issues. Any issuance of perpetual securities would rank below the FIIG originated issues, thus improving their position in the capital structure.
Covenants for the Notes within the new programme are in line with the covenants enjoyed by the FIIG originated issues with additional restrictions added (which have no negative effect on FIIG investors).