Monitronics announces $800m refinance

DALLAS, Texas--Monitronics International, a privately held national residential and commercial security monitoring company headquartered here, announced yesterday the completion of an $800 million refinancing effort finalized on Aug. 8. This refinancing effort was Monitronics' largest transaction in company history, according to Mike Meyers, vice president and chief financial officer. "This was a private transaction that we're very excited about because it gives us the financing we need to grow the company for at least five years and maybe more," said Mike Haislip, president and CEO of Monitronics. "We used the $800 million to repay all our existing debt, plus give us additional capacity in the future to purchase accounts from our dealer network," said Meyers. "This gives us stable and permanent capital structure for five years and beyond, which will allow the company to do what we do best, which is focus on our dealer network and continue to grow." With funds from the refinance, Monitronics purchased nearly $160 million of its notes outstanding through a cash tender offer. Those notes represent 99.6 percent of its high yield bonds due to mature in 2010, and were purchased for $1,091.51 per $1,000 of notes. "Based on the fact that we repurchased debt prior to its maturity, there are certain premiums to be paid to extinguish the debt early, which is pretty typical for financing like this," Meyers said. Monitronics has a principal amount of approximately $700,000 in notes outstanding, according to a statement released by the company. Monitronics has annual revenues of approximately $200 million and a dealer network of approximately 500.