FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., July 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- AutoNation, Inc.
(NYSE: AN), America's largest automotive retailer, announced that it has
closed on a new $600 million five-year unsecured credit facility with
investment-grade terms. The new facility replaces a $300 million, five-year
credit facility that was set to expire on August 9, 2006 and a $200 million
364-day credit facility that was set to expire on August 5, 2005. The new
credit facility will be used for general corporate purposes.
Commenting on the new credit facility, Craig Monaghan, chief financial
officer, said, "The terms of the new facility demonstrate the significant
progress AutoNation has made over the past five years and the confidence that
our lenders have in our future business plans. We recently became the first
public auto retailer to achieve investment grade status and view this new
credit facility as further validation of our business model and financial
discipline." Monaghan also said, "The new credit spreads are more than 100
basis points less than the credit spreads under the five-year credit facility
that we are replacing. We expect to take advantage of additional opportunities
to improve our credit spreads and optimize our capital structure as we move
forward."
The Administrative Agent for the credit facility is JPMorgan Chase Bank,
N. A. and the Syndication Agent is Bank of America, N. A. A total of 13
lenders are committed to the new credit facility.
About AutoNation, Inc.
AutoNation, Inc., headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., is America's
largest automotive retailer and a component of the Standard and Poor's 500
Index. In 2004 AutoNation was named America's Most Admired Automotive
Retailer for the 4th year in a row. AutoNation has approximately 27,000 full-
time employees and owns and operates 352 new vehicle franchises in 17 states.
For additional information, please visit http://corp.AutoNation.com or
http://www.AutoNation.com , where more than 100,000 vehicles are available for
sale.
FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
Certain statements and information included in this release constitute
"forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Federal Private
Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements
involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may
cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be
materially different from any future results, performance or achievements
expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements. Additional discussion
of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from
management's projections, estimates and expectations is contained in the
Company's SEC filings. The Company undertakes no duty to update its forward-
looking statements.
SOURCE AutoNation, Inc.
-0- 07/14/2005
/CONTACT: Marc Cannon, AutoNation, +1-954-769-3146, or
cannonm@autonation.com/
/Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20001017/AUTONATIONLOGO
AP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org
PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.com/
/Company News On-Call: http://www.prnewswire.com/comp/750525.html /
/Web site: http://corp.autonation.com
http://www.AutoNation.com /
(AN)
CO: AutoNation, Inc.
ST: Florida
IN: AUT
SU: FNC
AC-DS
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