Lead arranger and administration agent Credit Suisse First Boston is offering 1/4% commitment fees for the five-year $400 million refinancing for King Pharmaceutical. The deal also carries an out-of-the-box spread of LIBOR plus 1%. Bank of America, J.P. Morgan and UBS Warburg are co-syndication agents for the BB+/Baa3 credit, launched with a bank meeting two weeks ago. The deal is one of a number of credits in the market in the pharmaceutical sector. King is a specialty pharmaceutical company that buys products divested from the mergers of mega-pharmaceutical companies.
King has had particular success with Altace, an antihypertensive treatment. Sales of Altace have enabled the company to aggressively repay debt, but the company will rely on further acquisitions to expand its products, given that it does not have a significant research and development program, according to Standard & Poor's.