GEO Group Calls All $650 Million of 2029 Secured Notes and Extends $550 Million Revolver

The GEO Group will redeem all $650 million of its 8.625% senior secured notes due 2029 and has extended the maturity of its $550 million revolving credit facility to July 14, 2031. The two financing moves follow a large asset sale announced a day earlier and give the company a materially different debt profile heading into the final quarter of 2026.

GEO said the secured notes will be redeemed on October 15 at $1,043.13 for each $1,000 of original principal, equal to about $678 million in total redemption value, plus accrued and unpaid interest through the day before redemption. The company plans to deposit the redemption amount with the trustee by October 14, using net proceeds from recently announced asset sales.

In its October 6 announcement, GEO also said the amended revolving credit facility keeps commitments at $550 million but pushes the maturity out to July 14, 2031. The amendment also expands the company’s capacity to make restricted payments, including share repurchases, if specified leverage tests are met and no default exists.

Asset-sale proceeds will retire high-coupon secured debt

The 2029 secured notes were issued in April 2024 as part of a $1.275 billion financing package that also included $625 million of 10.25% senior unsecured notes due 2031. GEO issued the secured notes at par, with interest payable twice a year on April 15 and October 15. They were scheduled to mature on April 15, 2029, but the indenture allowed optional redemptions at specified prices beginning in April 2026.

The October call comes immediately after GEO completed the sale of three company-owned facilities in Adelanto, California, to the U.S. government for a combined gross price of $950 million. GEO estimated net proceeds of about $705 million after federal and state taxes, fees and expenses. The company said those proceeds, along with cash flow from operations, could be used to reduce debt, repurchase shares and support other corporate purposes.

Against that backdrop, the bond call directs most of the announced net sale proceeds toward debt reduction. The stated redemption value is about $28 million above the notes’ $650 million principal amount before accrued interest. At the 8.625% coupon, $650 million of principal carries roughly $56.1 million of annual cash interest. Retiring the notes therefore removes a large recurring interest obligation after the October 15 redemption, while requiring GEO to pay the contractual call premium now.

The notes themselves were part of an earlier refinancing cycle. When GEO issued them in 2024, it used the broader financing package, together with a new term loan and cash on hand, to refinance about $1.5 billion of existing indebtedness. The current redemption reverses part of that build-up only about two and a half years later, using proceeds from owned real estate rather than a new bond issue.

The $550 million revolver stays in place but runs to 2031

GEO has expanded and extended its revolving credit capacity several times. The facility originally had $310 million of commitments under the April 2024 credit agreement. In July 2025, the company increased commitments to $450 million and extended the maturity to July 14, 2030. A January 2026 amendment then raised commitments to $550 million. The latest amendment leaves that commitment size unchanged and adds another year to the maturity date.

The longer maturity gives GEO a committed liquidity backstop beyond the redemption of the 2029 secured notes. At June 30, 2026, the company reported $248.9 million of revolver borrowings, about $55 million of cash and cash equivalents, and roughly $300 million of total available liquidity. Those figures predate both the October asset sale and the new debt actions, so they should not be read as GEO’s post-redemption balances.

The amendment also changes how much capital GEO can return to shareholders under its credit agreement. After the 2029 secured-note indenture is discharged, the company said the amended credit agreement will permit unlimited restricted payments, including share repurchases, when its pro forma total leverage ratio is no more than 2.25 to 1.00 and no default exists. GEO’s separate $625 million of 10.25% senior unsecured notes due 2031 use a tighter condition for unlimited restricted payments: a pro forma consolidated total leverage ratio of no more than 2.00 to 1.00, again with no default.

Those thresholds expand capacity but do not require GEO to buy back stock. Repurchases remain subject to management discretion, market conditions, liquidity needs, securities-law requirements and the company’s other obligations.

Debt reduction now sits alongside a much larger buyback authorization

In its second-quarter SEC filing, GEO reported total debt of about $1.54 billion at June 30. The company separately reported total net debt of about $1.5 billion and net leverage below three times trailing adjusted EBITDA in its second-quarter earnings release. The $650 million principal amount now being redeemed represented roughly 42% of the total debt GEO reported at June 30. An exact post-redemption debt figure cannot be derived from those June balances because borrowings, cash flows and other balance-sheet items can change between reporting dates.

The timing also matters because GEO increased its share-repurchase authorization one day before announcing the bond call. On October 5, the board raised the authorization by $750 million to $1.25 billion and extended it through December 31, 2029. As of June 30, GEO had repurchased about 10.1 million shares for approximately $177 million under the previous $500 million authorization, leaving about $323 million under that program at the time.

Paying off the secured notes and loosening the credit agreement’s restricted-payment limits therefore address two different parts of the capital structure. One reduces an 8.625% secured debt obligation. The other gives GEO more flexibility to use future balance-sheet capacity for shareholder returns if leverage falls far enough and other conditions are satisfied.

GEO is not eliminating all of its high-coupon bond debt. The $625 million of 10.25% senior unsecured notes due 2031 remained outstanding at June 30 and are not part of the October 15 redemption notice. The immediate milestone is the secured-note call: GEO plans to fund the trustee by October 14, with the redemption scheduled for the following day.