Slovenia's SIJ drops plans for commerical paper issue in Dec

LJUBLJANA (Slovenia), December 1 (SeeNews) - Slovenian steel producer Slovenska Industrija Jekla (SIJ) dropped plans for the issue one-year commercial paper in the amount of up to 15 million euro ($15.7 million) in the first half of December, it said on Thursday.

"Given the record-high business results, high financial liquidity and available alternative sources of financing, the planned issuance of commercial paper would mean a departure from the optimal financing price that the SIJ Group is ready to accept," the company said in a filing with the Ljubljana Stock Exchange.

SIJ plans to repay its 30 million euro one-year commercial papers maturing on December 9 without refinancing, but intends to maintain its presence on the Slovenian capital market where it placed a total of 12 debt securities in the last ten years, it said.

"SIJ will continue to monitor market conditions on the capital markets in the future and, if conditions are favourable, continue with the trend of regular issuance of debt securities," the steel producer added.

Last month, SIJ invited investors to subscribe for the issue of one-year commercial paper in the amount of up to 15 million euro at a fixed annual interest rate of 4%

SIJ recorded sales revenue of 1.033 billion euro in the first nine months of 2022, up 44.5% on the year, as earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) totalled 136.9 million euro, whereas EBITDA margin went up by 3.0 percentage points to 13.3%.

The SIJ Group is the largest vertically integrated metallurgical group in Slovenia, occupying with its products leading positions on European and global niche steel markets.

($ = 0.9571 euro)