Taken from NATSnet today - NATS has significant liquidity...we are in a good position
NATS’ Press Office moved swiftly this morning to get a story removed from The Times Online, which named NATS amongst a number of companies it said was preparing to renegotiate highly geared debt.
The story, titled “Debt logjam fears as $11.3bn of loans come due”, said NATS was “likely to have to go back to its lenders” in the next six months, and that we had to “renegotiate or pay off almost $500m of debt used to fund capital expenditure…”
It turned out that The Times’ story, which appeared on “NATS in the News” on NATSnet briefly this morning, was based on data provided by a newswire service which was more than five years old, and pre-dated the refinancing of our bank facilities in 2005.
In fact, NATS has no loans to repay until 2012 and no imminent need to refinance our borrowing facilities. We also have significant liquidity – as highlighted by Standard & Poor’s in their report on us in May. NATS has an A credit rating with S&P and an A3 credit rating with Moody’s so in fact we are in a good position at present compared with many companies if we were to require any additional liquidity.
Jane Johnston
Jane Johnston, Head of External Communications, contacted The Times City Desk to get the story removed from their website while Mike Nicholson and his Treasury team investigated how the newswire had obtained its out-of-date information. The story was amended before midday.
“It was a bolt from the blue as The Times hadn’t checked it with us before publishing,” said Jane. “Fortunately they realised very quickly that there was a serious problem with the information and removed it immediately.”
Nigel Fotherby
Nigel Fotherby, Finance Director, added: “Incorrect reports like this can escalate very quickly and cause a lot of damage to our reputation so I’m very pleased that we were able to tackle it promptly.”