Hammerson announces the successful syndication and signing of a ca. €430m (£360m) unsecured Revolving Credit Facility at an initial margin of 90 basis points with a syndicate of fourteen international banks. The facility has a maturity of five years which may be extended to a maximum of seven years.
This new facility will refinance an existing ca. €209m (£175m) RCF maturing in April 2018. This existing facility featured a margin of 150 basis points, so the new facility will result in a reduced margin of 60 basis points. The existing facility will be cancelled resulting in a net increase of ca. €221m (£185m) of available bank facilities and increasing total bank facilities to €1.43m (£1.2bn). The commercial terms of the new facility are the same as Hammerson's two other RCFs and include Hammerson's standard unsecured financial covenants.
This transaction is the latest in a sequence of recent transactions by Hammerson reinforcing the strong financial position of the group and extending the maturity of debt. The circa €478m (£400m) private placement funded in January and both the ca. €495m (£415m) and €502m (£420m) RCFs were extended by one year earlier this month. The €1.5bn short-term facility raised for the acquisitions in Ireland and Birmingham has now been fully repaid. This combination of transactions extends the weighted average maturity of debt from 5.5 years at 31 December 2016 to 6.4 years on a pro forma basis.
MUFG acted as Coordinator for the facility and Deutsche Bank was appointed as Facility Agent. BNP Paribas, First Commercial Bank Limited, ICBC (London) plc, J.P. Morgan Limited, The Royal Bank Of Scotland PLC and Wells Fargo Bank were appointed Mandated Lead Arrangers and Bookrunners. Commitments were also provided by Agricultural Bank of China (UK) Limited, Bank of China Limited London Branch, Bank of Taiwan London Branch, Chang Hwa Commercial Bank Limited London Branch, CIC and Hua Nan Commercial Bank London Branch.
Timon Drakesmith, Chief Financial Officer of Hammerson, said: "This new credit facility is the latest milestone in our journey to reduce Hammerson's cost of debt by refinancing in an attractive funding environment. I am particularly delighted to welcome five new banks into our relationship group and appreciate the support from major institutions from Asia, US and Europe."
