Big River proposes $875M funding method

Osceola, Arkansas-based Big River Steel LLC (BRS) says it intends to offer up to $875 million worth of senior secured notes that would be due in 2029.

The company says the notes, which “are being issued jointly and severally by BRS and its wholly owned subsidiary, BRS Finance Corp,” are to be designated Green Bonds because the company intends to use the proceeds from the notes for eligible green expenditures, including the financing of expenditures related to scrap recycling and waste reduction that the company “believes contribute substantially to pollution prevention and control.”

BRS says, should the note offering be arranged, they will be offered in the United States “only to qualified institutional buyers in an offering exempt from registration pursuant to Rule 144A under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and to persons outside the United States in compliance with Regulation S under the Securities Act.”

The scrap-fed electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmaker says it intends to use the proceeds from the proposed notes “to fully repay and satisfy all of its obligations under its term loan credit facility, to exercise the optional redemption of its senior secured notes due 2025 and to pay fees and expenses incurred in connection with this offering.”

BRS was founded as an EAF steelmaker in 2014. In 2019, BRS announced that Pittsburgh-based United States Steel Corp. had purchased a 49.9 percent ownership interest in BRS for $700 million. At the time, BRS also indicated that as part of its investment, U. S. Steel holds an option to acquire the remaining 50.1 percent of the firm.