The Board of F&C Commercial Property has announced that it has agreed amended financing arrangements with Barclays Bank PLC to the existing GBP50 million term loan facility between SCP Estate Holdings Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company, and Barclays which was repayable in June 2017. The amended arrangements extend the repayment date of the GBP50 million term loan facility to 21 June 2021. In addition the Board has agreed an additional revolving credit facility of GBP50 million with Barclays over the same period, to be used for ongoing working capital purposes and to provide the Group with the flexibility to acquire further property should the opportunity arise.
Following this refinancing, the Group’s available borrowings comprise a GBP260 million term loan with Legal & General Pensions Limited, with a maturity date of 31 December 2024, and the GBP50 million term loan facility provided by Barclays together with the undrawn GBP50 million revolving credit facility. The current drawn down borrowings amount to GBP310 million and represent 22.3 per cent of the total assets of the Group as at 31 March 2016.
The Group terminated its existing interest rate hedging arrangements entered into in connection with the Barclays facility (which had previously been accounted for as a liability, net of accrued interest, of GBP1.4 million as at 31 March 2016) at a cost of GBP1.4 million. The Group has entered into a new GBP50 million interest rate swap in connection with the extended Barclays term facility which has fixed interest payable at 2.5 per cent. per annum, a reduction on the interest rate of the previous Barclays facility which was 4.9 per cent per annum.
The weighted average interest rate on the Group’s total current borrowings is 3.3 per cent. The weighted average interest rate on the Group’s total borrowings has therefore fallen by 0.3 per cent. following the refinancing.
FCPT : F&C Commercial Property extends borrowing facilities