British Land signs ?785m RCF & closes ?200m USPP
3 April 2014
British Land signs new £785 million Revolving Credit Facility
and closes £200 million US Private Placement
British Land announces the signing of a new unsecured Revolving Credit Facility at £785 million with a syndicate of 14 banks. The Facility has a maturity of five years which may be extended to a maximum of seven years, on British Land's request and on each bank's approval for their participation. The Facility has an initial margin of 115 bps and its terms include British Land's standard unsecured financial covenants.
Lloyds Bank plc, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Santander Global Banking & Markets and The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd. were Joint Co-ordinators and Bookrunners. Lloyds is the Facility Agent.
Commitments were also provided by Barclays Bank PLC, Bank of China Limited, London Branch, HSBC Bank plc, JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A., Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen Girozentrale ('Helaba'), Royal Bank of Canada, Wells Fargo, BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank and The Royal Bank of Scotland plc. Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Royal Bank of Canada, Wells Fargo and BNP Paribas are new or re-established unsecured lending relationships for British Land.
British Land has also closed and drawn, as scheduled, its £200m US Private Placement, signed in August 2013. The two Sterling fixed rate notes with 12 year maturity were provided by New York Life and Pricoa Capital Group, and swapped to an effective floating rate of 103 bps above LIBOR. The terms of this transaction were further enhanced by the agreed deferred drawdown, enabling the Company to continue to utilise lower margin bank facilities arranged in earlier years.
Lucinda Bell, Finance Director, said: "We are very pleased with the level of support for this new Revolving Credit Facility. Over the last 12 months we have raised £1.5 billion of debt finance on competitive terms from a broad range of sources. By taking advantage of current market conditions, this Facility adds further flexibility and term to our already strong and well diversified debt portfolio."
For Information Contact
Investor Relations
Sally Jones, British Land 020 7467 2942
Media
Pip Wood, British Land 020 7467 2838
Gordon Simpson, Finsbury Group/ 020 7251 3801
Guy Lamming, Finsbury Group
About British Land
British Land is one of Europe's largest Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). Through our property and finance expertise we attract experienced partners to create properties and environments which are home to over 1,000 different organisationsand receive over 300 million visits each year. Our property portfolio is focused on the UK, in prime retail locations and London offices which attract high quality occupiers committed to long leases. We have total assets in the UK, owned or managed, of £17.1 billion (British Land share £11.2 billion), as valued at 30 September 2013. Our occupancy rate is 97% and average lease length to first break is 11 years.
UK retail assets account for 59% of our portfolio, around 80% of which are located at prime out of town sites. Comprising around 26 million sq ft of retail space across 67 retail parks, 87 superstores, 16 shopping centres and 12 department stores and 77 leisure assets, the retail portfolio is modern, flexible and adaptable to a wide range of formats. Our active asset management delivers space which is attractive and meets the needs of both retailers and consumers.
London offices, located in the City and West End, comprise 39% of the portfolio, which will rise to an estimated 43% on completion of current committed developments. Our 7 million sq ft of high quality office space includes Regent's Place and Paddington Central in the West End and Broadgate, the premier City office campus (50% share).
Our size and substance demands a responsible approach to business. We believe leadership on issues such as sustainability helps drive our performance and is core to the delivery of our overall objective of driving shareholder value.
Further details can be found on the British Land website at www.britishland.com
Forward-Looking Statements
This release contains certain "forward-looking" statements reflecting, among other things, current views on our markets, activities and prospects. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risk and uncertainty because they relate to future events and circumstances that may or may not occur and which may be beyond British Land's ability to control or predict (such as changing political, economic or market circumstances). Actual outcomes and results may differ materially from any outcomes or results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statements made by or on behalf of British Land speak only as of the date they are made and no representation or warranty is given in relation to them, including as to their completeness or accuracy or the basis on which they were prepared. Except to the extent required by law, British Land does not undertake to update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect any changes in British Land's expectations with regard thereto or any changes in information, events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based.
This information is provided by RNS
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