Paragon announces a new €180m bank financing agreement

Hi everyone,

One of the most important roles I have as Chief Financial Officer for Paragon is to provide updates on our financial highlights to all our stakeholders, both internal and external. So, I’m delighted to kick off my regular financial communications with some great news.

Paragon has entered into a new financing agreement with a group of key commercial banks (BNP Paribas, Citi, Commerzbank, HSBC and NatWest) for a €180m, multi-currency borrowing facility. This new facility puts Paragon in a strong position to deliver our global growth ambitions. In addition, it gives us excellent flexibility in terms of currency and debt management, which improves the efficiency of our balance sheet. Together with the remaining Euro Private Placement (Euro PP) bonds, it gives us a very competitive and agile capital structure. Of the total facility amount, €50m is in the form of a term loan and replaces our €52m Euro PP bond, which has now been redeemed. The remaining €130m is in the form of an initially undrawn Revolving Credit Facility (RCF), which provides an additional liquidity reserve.

This puts Paragon in a great position for expansion through acquisition and investment and enhances our resilience in today’s volatile financial environment. As Jeremy mentioned in his recent CEO update, it has been a successful year for Paragon. All the indications are that the combination of our new growth strategy, business rebrand, and the drive of our talented people will result in another record year. I’m therefore pleased to sign off my first CFO update on a very positive note and look forward to sharing our end-of-year results in my next CFO update.

Thank you.

Martin Edstrom