Debt and investments

Rating  Rating

Edenred has been rated BBB+/A-2; Outlook stable, i.e. “Strong Investment Grade” by Standard & Poor’s on June 9, 2010. The rating has been confirmed by Standard & Poor’s in a press release dated May 9, 2018.
This rating is based on a multi-criteria analysis, appraising:

• the business profile of the Group, rated “Strong”, reflecting the Edenred’s worldwide leadership position and its growth prospects.
• its financial position, rated “Intermediate”, in respect of Edenred’s sustainable financial position and its cash-flows generating business model.

Debt structure at end December 2017  Debt structure at end December 2017

Confirmed lines of credit

At December 31, 2017, Edenred had €700 million in undrawn confirmed lines of credit, expiring at the end of July 2022. This facility will be used for general corporate purposes.

On July 6, 2017, the maturity of the €700 million syndicated credit facility expiring on July 21, 2021 was extended by one year, in line with the option granted in the facility agreement. By accepting this extension, all the participating banks reaffirmed their confidence in the Group. With the new five-year maturity, the facility will now be utilizable until July 2022.

Investments  Investments

The Group’s negative working capital amounted to €3.1 billion at December 31, 2017.

Negative WC breakdown as of December 31, 2017

* Restricted cash are funds which correspond to prepaid service vouchers under special regulations. They are excluded when calculating the net debt. 

Breakdown of the invested funds as of December 31, 2017

Note: The remuneration from the investments is recorded as financial revenue.

A cautious investment policy

To manage its treasury, the Group’s market risk management policy is designed to mitigate the capital, the liquidity and the counterparty risks.

Hence, most of the financial investments are made in monetary instruments (fixed-rate time deposits, term accounts, retail certificates of deposit or interest-bearing demand deposits).

Exposure to counterparty risk is reduced by:

• dealing only with leading counterparties according to correlated country risks;
• using a wide range of counterparties;
• setting exposure limits by counterparty;
• using a monthly reporting procedure to track the concentration of counterparty risk and the credit quality of the various counterparties (based on their credit ratings).

The majority of the Group’s available cash is managed under a centralized cash-management scheme enabling to reduce the Group’s risk exposure thanks to a centralized and regular monitoring.