Merck & Co updates on credit facility

US drug major Merck & Co has provided an update on the status of credit facilities that will be used to finance its recently-announced agreement  to acquire Schering-Plough. Merck and JP Morgan, as lead arranger, have  completed primary syndication of $7.0 billion of new Merck credit  facilities with commitments from eight additional co-arrangers - Bank of  America, BNP Paribas, Citi, Credit Suisse, HSBC, the Royal Bank of  Scotland, Santander and UBS. In addition, Merck has secured commitments  for the amendment of its existing $1.5 billion revolving credit facility  that will allow the facility to remain in place after the merger.

Earlier, it was revealed that Merck has agreed to pay S-P a break-up fee  of $2.5 billion if it fails to get financing for the $41.1-billion deal,  while the latter would only need to pay Merck $1.25 billion if it walked  away from the accord.