Schlumberger, the oil field and technology services company, will be signing a $2 billion Euro-CP programme before the end of next week. Barclays Capital has been given the role of arranger. The programme will start trading shortly after it is signed, according to Philippe Petre, a member of the group's treasury in Paris. Total outstandings will not go above $1.5 billion and the issuer will be concentrating its paper in the euro and sterling markets. Standard & Poor's recently assigned an A-1+ short-term credit rating to Schlumberger's facility, and Petre expects that Moody's will soon assign its P-1 rating to the programme. Petre says: "The Euro-CP market is great if you have a good rating, and with our ratings we have no reason not to get the prices we expect. It is going to offer good liquidity for our needs." The issuer also has access to a revolving bank credit facility until 2007, which will provide additional liquidity for the Euro-CP shelf. These two instruments are the final stages of the company's refinancing strategy, introduced after the acquisition of Sema last year. No roadshow is planned, as much of the issuer's marketing and research has already been done. Petre says: "We have been preparing for this market by calling investors, touring the different dealers and talking with credit analysts we know from the issue of our other bonds." The dealers are the arranger, Deutsche Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland.
February 01, 2002
