Viking refinances with $720m notes sale

The company plans to use the proceeds, together with cash on hand, to redeem its 13% senior secured notes due 2025. Those were issued in May 2020 following the industry's global shutdown two months earlier due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bloomberg reported the 9.125% yield was lower than earlier discussions of around 9.25%, 'according to a person familiar with the matter.'

The notes were priced Monday, coinciding with Carnival Corp. & plc's second quarter earnings report and its strong future bookings and pricing outlook.

Pandemic recovery

Earlier this month, Viking Chairman Torstein Hagen laid out his company's pandemic recovery during a news conference in New York prior to Viking Saturn's naming festivities.

Hagen said the company matched 2019's $3b in ticket revenue in 2022 with 470,000 passengers carried at an average rate of $6,290.

Adjusted EBITDA was $375m, compared to $769m in 2019.

Bookings

Hagen said Viking's 2023 ocean bookings to date were up 53% on 2019 while river bookings were up 12%. Some 89% of ocean capacity and 95% of river capacity is booked for this year.

For 2024, 49% of ocean capacity and 31% of river capacity is booked.

Viking offered the notes to qualified institutional investors outside the US.