Other Relationships
The underwriters and their respective affiliates are full service financial institutions engaged in various activities, which may include sales and trading, commercial and investment banking, advisory, investment management, investment research, principal investment, hedging, market-making, brokerage, and other financial and non-financial activities and services. Certain of the underwriters and their respective affiliates have provided, and may in the future provide, a variety of these services to us or our subsidiaries and to persons and entities with relationships with us, for which they received or will receive customary fees and expenses. For example, certain of the underwriters or their respective affiliates are lenders and fulfill other administrative roles under our Credit Facilities.
In the ordinary course of their various business activities, the underwriters and their respective affiliates, officers, directors, and employees may purchase, sell or hold a broad array of investments and actively trade debt and equity securities, derivatives, loans, commodities, currencies, credit default swaps, and other financial instruments for their own account and for the accounts of their customers, and such investment and trading activities may involve or relate to assets, securities and/or instruments of ours (directly, as collateral securing other obligations or otherwise) and/or persons and entities with relationships with us. If any of the underwriters or their respective affiliates have a lending relationship with us or our subsidiaries, certain of those underwriters or their respective affiliates routinely hedge, certain of those underwriters or their affiliates are likely to hedge, and certain other of those underwriters or their affiliates may hedge, their credit exposure to us consistent with their customary risk management policies. Typically, these underwriters and their respective affiliates would hedge such exposure by entering into transactions which consist of either the purchase of credit default swaps or the creation of short positions in our securities, including potentially the notes offered hereby. Any such credit default swaps or short positions could adversely affect future trading prices of the notes offered hereby. The underwriters and their respective affiliates may also communicate independent investment recommendations, market color or trading ideas and/or publish or express independent research views in respect of such assets, securities or instruments and may at any time hold, or recommend to clients that they should acquire, long and/or short positions in such assets, securities, and instruments.
Conflicts of Interest
We intend to use the net proceeds from this offering for general corporate purposes, which will include funding the repayment of our 2024 Notes and may also include the repayment of other outstanding debt, share repurchases, ongoing operations, capital expenditures and possible acquisitions of businesses or assets or strategic investments. To the extent that any underwriter (or its respective affiliates) owns any of such outstanding debt, it may receive a portion of the net proceeds from this offering. Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation, Limited and Standard Chartered Bank and affiliates of BofA Securities, Inc., Barclays Capital Inc., BNP Paribas Securities Corp., Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, Mizuho Securities USA LLC, Morgan Stanley & Co., MUFG Securities Americas Inc., RBC Capital Markets, LLC, Santander US Capital Markets LLC, SMBC Nikko Securities America Inc. and Wells Fargo Securities, LLC. are lenders under our Credit Agreement. Affiliates of Mizuho Securities USA LLC, MUFG Securities Americas Inc. and SMBC Nikko Securities America, Inc. are lenders under our Paidy Credit Agreement. These underwriters or their affiliates would receive a portion of the proceeds from this offering if outstanding borrowings under our Credit Agreement or Paidy Credit Agreement were to be repaid.
If any one underwriter, together with its affiliates, were to receive 5% or more of the net proceeds of this offering by reason of any such repayment, such underwriters would be deemed to have a “conflict of interest” within the meaning of Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) Rule 5121. Accordingly, this offering will be conducted in accordance with Rule 5121. However, in accordance with FINRA Rule 5121, no “qualified independent underwriter” is required because the notes are investment grade-rated by one or more nationally recognized statistical rating agencies.
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