Staples Sets Offer Price for Senior Subordinated Notes

This news release from Staples is not as exciting as news about the share related offer, but is noteworthy anyway. Since Staples wants to capture most of the enterprise value of CE, and apparently some change of control covenants exist, an offer was made on these notes. It is interesting to read that Staples has received consent from holders of 98.67% of the principal outstanding amount of the 2014 Notes and 99.33% of the 2015 Notes to make some amendments to the indentures governing the notes. I suspect that holders of convertible bonds will behave more like holders of notes than like shareholders, which would mean that if all convertible bonds are tendered, Staples would secure another 16.7 million shares, or 7.4% of total fully diluted voting rights. For the shareholders meeting on June 18, this is however not relevant, because the convertible bonds do not represent actual current voting rights. (end of post)