Grab and SEA repay their debts, confident with their cash positions repay future debts

Last week, during its earnings release, Grab announced that it had bought back $600 million of debt – part of its US$2 billion term loan B which matures in 2026 – taking advantage of excess cash on its balance sheet. 

This is in addition to the US$750 million the company bought back in November last year. 

CFO Peter Oey said Grab is “taking advantage of its healthy cash position to reduce our gross debt balance and generate interest savings, given the macroeconomic environment”. 

But Grab is not the only company from Southeast Asia making use of its healthy cash position to repay its debts. 

SEA also announced in its 2022 Q4 and FY earnings release that it has repurchased US$817.2 million aggregate principal amount of its 0.25% convertible senior notes due in 2026, for a cash consideration of US$611.3 million. 

This results in approximately US$2.1 billion aggregate principal amount of the 2026 CB remaining outstanding.

As of Q3 2022, both Grab and SEA have relatively healthy cash positions compared to their competitors, hence it makes sense for them to take advantage of their cash position and reduce their debts. 

On the other hand, Delivery Hero issued senior, unsecured convertible bonds with an aggregate principal amount of approximately EUR 1000 million, maturing in February 2030. It intends to use the proceeds to repurchase EUR 476.4 million and EUR  250.0 million of the convertible bonds due in 2024 and 2025 respectively. 

Check out Momentum Academy’s latest Apples to Apples: Benchmarking Shopee, Grab, GoTo and other major tech platforms report for an overview of the debt situation (including amount, maturity and conversion price) of 7 different platform companies, including Grab, SEA and Delivery Hero. 

We will also update the report once every platform has already reported their latest results (Meituan and GoTo are expected to report theirs next week). Do stay tuned!