In QuotedData’s morning briefing 20 August 2020:
- Great Portland Estates is issuing £150m of new unsecured US private placement notes. The Sterling denominated notes cover 12 year and 15 year maturities (weighted average of 14.5 years) and have a weighted average fixed rate coupon of 2.77%. The new issue priced on 5 August and, subject to contract, funds will be drawn on 5 November. The notes were placed with six investors, including two new lenders to GPE, and have identical financial covenants to the Group’s other unsecured debt. Great Portland’s weighted average debt maturity will be 7.5 years once drawn (5.6 years at 30 June 2020). It will have £500m of available liquidity. The LTV at 30 June 2020 was only 15.0%.
- Hg sells Citation – Hg has announced the sale of Citation Group, a leading provider of subscription-based HR and Employment law, Health & Safety, and ISO (International Organization for Standardization) services to over 40,000 small and medium sized enterprises across the UK. The buyer is KKR. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. KKR’s investment is being made through its European private equity fund, European Fund V, and through its Global Impact Fund. Hg Capital Trust will realise estimated cash proceeds of approximately £25.8m on completion of this transaction. This would represent an uplift of £3.6m (16%) or 1 pence per share over the NAV at 31 March 2020.
- LondonMetric Property has demonstrated the resilience of its logistics-focused property portfolio with a 5% hike in its quarterly interim dividend to 2.1p.
- BH Global says that, after 12 years of service at Brevan Howard, Magnus Olsson, chair of the manager’s investment committee, has left Brevan Howard. His replacement is Ryan Kennelly,who previously worked with Magnus, attended BH Global Board meetings some time ago, and has rejoined Brevan Howard.
We also have details of Secured Income Fund‘s planned wind down.