Eckerd to use stock proceeds to repay debt.

Jack Eckerd Corp. said it will use proceeds from a planned stock sale to retire part of a recently completed bank refinancing totaling $950 million.

The refinancing, completed this month, was led by Chemical Bank and NationsBank.

On Friday, the Florida-based drugstore chain filed an initial public offering of 4.5 million common shares. Net proceeds from the sale are estimated at $70 million.

Payment Plans

More than half of the proceeds would be applied to the $950 million credit agreement, while the remainder would be used to pay off a $31.6 million loan of an Eckerd subsidiary.

As reported, the $950 million credit package was used to refinance old bank debt and several issues of junk bonds stemming from the 1986 leveraged buyout of Eckerd by Merrill Lynch Capital Partners.

Merrill Lynch & Co. is the lead underwriter of the stock offering.

Eckerd anticipated that it would soon file a stock offering when it embarked on its refinancing in April.

For that reason, the company bypassed the bond market as a source of new funds because it wanted to avoid prepayment penalties, sources said at the time.

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