Financing at wienerberger

wienerberger manages its financing centrally and strives for a broad diversification of financial instruments and capital providers in order to avoid dependencies.

wienerberger emphasizes a balanced mix of fixed and variable interest rates. During periods of very low interest rates, the proportion of fixed interest is increased; in a normalized interest rate environment, the selected long-term capital structure can typically have a slight overweight of variable interest. 

wienerberger ensures a balanced maturity profile through forward-looking maturity structuring of financial liabilities, thereby avoiding excessive refinancing peaks. Future maturities are addressed with an appropriate lead time and refinanced in a timely manner.

As far as possible, wienerberger companies are financed in local currency by Corporate Treasury via the central financing company and are also supported in liquidity management and foreign currency hedging.

wienerberger is committed to a conservative financing policy and aims for a debt repayment period (ratio of net debt to operating EBITDA) between 1.5 and 2.0 years at the end of the year. 

The credit rating represents the assessment of a company's creditworthiness and solvency by an agency specializing in credit monitoring. wienerberger is rated by Moody’s, an international rating agency, and strives to maintain a consistently high rating. Its rating was upgraded in March 2023 and currently stands at:

wienerberger established sustainability-oriented instruments as a key component of its financing for the first time in 2019.

Based on the Sustainability Program 2023-26, wienerberger developed a comprehensive Sustainability-Linked Finance Framework in 2023. This framework enables wienerberger to raise long-term funds with an explicit sustainability focus both on the capital market and from banks. wienerberger's targets, which contribute to decarbonization and climate change mitigation, are directly incorporated into the financing conditions. This provides substantial economic incentives to achieve our sustainability targets and at the same time attracts sustainability-oriented investor groups.

wienerberger's short-term financing instruments include various near-money market credit lines and a commercial paper program. The commercial paper program allows us to cover financing requirements of up to € 200 million flexibly and at short notice. The terms are agreed with the investors and range from one week to one year.

The long-term interest-bearing financial liabilities comprise a balanced mix of corporate bonds and loan financing and thus allow for a broad diversification of capital providers.

wienerberger’s current outstanding corporate bonds were issued in 2020 and 2023. The most recent bond was structured as a sustainability-linked bond and links the final bond coupon to the achievement of important strategic sustainability targets.

All wienerberger bonds are admitted to trading on the Vienna Stock Exchange. Current price information can be found here: The Vienna Stock Exchange.

Large volume and long-term loan financing is usually concluded with international syndicates of long-standing partner banks and refinanced by Oesterreichische Kontrollbank (OeKB). The flexible amortizing repayment structures of wienerberger's most important loan financing arrangements help even out the maturity profile and look as follows:

In November 2024, we established a new long-term revolving credit facility (RCF) at a volume of € 750 million with twelve banks (replacing the previous € 600 million RCF). The new RCF is available for general corporate purposes and constitutes a liquidity reserve for working capital swings, debt maturities and growth projects. It matures in November 2029 and features two extension options until 2031.

_{Status: November 2024}