Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief
Wildstone, the leading owner of outdoor media infrastructure across the UK and Europe, has completed a landmark GBP 350 million infrastructure refinancing with Deutsche Bank as underwriter and MEAG, Lloyds, Natixis and M&G as mandated lead arrangers.
We are told that the transaction enables Wildstone to both refinance its existing debt and fund its next stage of growth across the UK and Europe. The transaction also marks the first infrastructure debt raised in the Out-of-Home (OOH) sector, and is the first widely syndicated financing for Wildstone.
Since 2010 Wildstone has established itself as a leader in OOH infrastructure by developing a portfolio of more than 5,000 OOH assets across the UK, Ireland, Spain, The Netherlands and Germany. The new debt facility will enable Wildstone to further scale its portfolio in European markets and explore strategic opportunities to expand its global reach.
Damian Cox, CEO and Founder of Wildstone told us “Completing a refinancing of this magnitude in today’s market is testament to the quality of our estate, our people and most importantly our partner tenants. This industry-first debt facility will enable us to further expand our portfolio across Europe, aggressively scale our industry-transforming digitisation efforts and increase our operational flexibility.”
Wildstone’s accelerating digital rollout puts the company at the forefront of the OOH sector’s digital revolution. The company leads the way with hundreds of traditional paper billboards converted to digital at a time of unprecedented digital OOH market growth: the global digital OOH market size is forecast to double from $23 billion today to $46b by 2029, expanding at a CAGR of 15.2%. In 2023 digital OOH was also forecast to grow faster than any other advertising channel, and at four times the rate of the paper OOH market. The new flexible debt facility will unlock Wildstone’s ability to further digitally enhance existing sites and invest in other capital upgrades across its portfolio.
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