Trinidad Gen­er­a­tion Un­lim­it­ed (TGU) and NCB Fi­nan­cial Group Lim­it­ed (NCBFG) are plan­ning to raise US$500 mil­lion and US$300 mil­lion, re­spec­tive­ly, in the in­ter­na­tion­al cap­i­tal mar­kets to re­fi­nance ex­ist­ing debt.

Fitch Rat­ings as­signed a BB rat­ing to TGU, which is ex­pect­ed to raise US$500 mil­lion in se­nior un­se­cured notes due 2033. The pro­ceeds from the bond is­sue will be used to re­fi­nance the com­pa­ny’s ex­ist­ing US$600 mil­lion un­se­cured notes due 2027. Part of the net pro­ceeds will be used to pay for is­suance costs and gen­er­al cor­po­rate pur­pos­es.

“The rat­ing re­flects TGU’s im­por­tance to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s (T&T) en­er­gy ma­trix and its op­er­a­tional ties to the gov­ern­ment. TGU’s gen­er­a­tion ca­pac­i­ty is con­tract­ed un­der a pow­er pur­chase agree­ment (PPA) through 2041 with state-owned elec­tric­i­ty trans­mis­sion and com­mer­cial­iza­tion en­ti­ty T&T Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC), with pay­ments un­con­di­tion­al­ly and ir­rev­o­ca­bly guar­an­teed by the gov­ern­ment. As the pri­ma­ry na­tion­al en­er­gy provider, TGU ben­e­fits from long-term cash sta­bil­i­ty with lim­it­ed busi­ness, mar­ket, and de­mand risk,” the Fitch news re­lease stat­ed.

NCBFG pub­lished a re­lease on the Ja­maica Stock Ex­change (JSE) that it would be rais­ing US$300 mil­lion by way of an of­fer­ing of new se­nior un­se­cured notes. The rate and tenor of the in­stru­ment has yet to be de­ter­mined, ac­cord­ing to Fitch Rat­ings, which as­signed an ex­pect­ed B+ long-term rat­ing for NCBFG. The of­fer is to be priced by June 11 and close short­ly there­after as per the JSE re­lease. NCBFG has J$90.72 bil­lion (US$571.64 mil­lion) in debt as of Sep­tem­ber 30 2024, with J$45.99 bil­lion (US$289.82 mil­lion) in Unit­ed States dol­lars (USD).

“NCBFG will use the net pro­ceeds to re­deem part of its re­main­ing out­stand­ing notes and for gen­er­al cor­po­rate pur­pos­es. The fi­nal rat­ing is con­tin­gent up­on the re­ceipt of fi­nal doc­u­ments con­form­ing to in­for­ma­tion al­ready re­ceived,” the Fitch re­lease stat­ed.

NCBFG al­so re­ceived a B– rat­ing from S&P Glob­al Rat­ings for the pro­posed se­nior un­se­cured medi­um-term notes. Its sub­sidiary Na­tion­al Com­mer­cial Bank Ja­maica Lim­it­ed has a high­er BB– rat­ing from S&P Glob­al and Fitch Rat­ings.