British Land announced the signing of a new unsecured Revolving Credit Facility at £785 million (approx. €949,3 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 £200 million (approx. €241.85 million) 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."
Source: British Land
