Business News

Graham Packaging Announces Plan to Extend Its Credit Agreement

Thursday 14. May 2009 - Graham Packaging Holdings Company today announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Graham Packaging Company, L.P. ("Graham" or the "Company") plans to approach the lenders party to its credit agreement with an amendment request.

If approved, the amendment would allow lenders to extend the maturity of a portion of the Company’s existing term loans from October 2011 to April 2014 and extend the maturity of up to $125 million of Graham’s existing revolving credit commitments from October 2010 to October 2013. The Company expects to pay an increased interest rate to those lenders that agree to extend the maturity of their term loans or revolving credit commitments. The Company would also expect that certain of those lenders that agree to extend the maturity of their revolving credit commitments would have a portion of such revolving credit commitments reduced.

Mark Burgess, CEO of Graham commented, “Graham’s liquidity is strong with $136 million in cash and $238 million available on revolving credit at the end of our first quarter in March 2009. The revolving credit commitment under our credit agreement does not expire until October 2010, and the term loan under our credit agreement does not expire until October 2011. Even so, we think it prudent to take advantage of our strong operational performance to extend the maturity of a portion of our debt to limit the risk of future refinancing.”