Property investor fixes on £10m loan facility
Real Estate Investors (REI) has refinanced a £10m loan facility, moving to a fixed rate deal to provide the property investment business with more certainty.
The stock market listed business owns a commercial property portfolio of 1.5m sq ft and last month revealed it had “agreed bank facilities of £25m to capitalise on any suitable opportunities that arise” in the months ahead.
While any disruption from the political uncertainty might create opportunities for acquisitions, the loan facility is designed to increase certainty around its own finances.
More than three-quarters of the company’s debt is now at a fixed interest rate, while the average cost of REI’s overall debt which remains at 3.7%.
REI’s chief executive Paul Bassi said: “In line with our stated strategy, we have taken advantage of the low interest environment to fix this facility with Lloyds Bank which has given us increased certainty over our cost of borrowings without raising our overall costs.
“We are well placed, given our existing cash and banking facilities, to maintain our opportunistic approach to acquiring further criteria compliant assets and we anticipate concluding some of our pipeline acquisitions in the near future.”
The loan facility has an interest rate of 3.129% per annum until November 2023 and is secured against a portfolio of REI’s properties.
REI recently published its financial figures for the first half of 2019, which showed an 8% increase in revenue, to £8.1m, and an 18% increase in underlying pre-tax profit to £4m. Occupancy was slightly above 96% and contracted annual rents had increased to £17m.
