Capital & Regional announces refinancing
CAPITAL & Regional the property fund manager has announced details of a refinancing of its Mall Fund, which owns shopping centres throughout the UK.
In Yorkshire Capital & Regional operates The Mall in Barnsley through the fund. The 180,000 sq ft centre has tenants that include TK Maxx, Next and Primark.
The fund has issued £1bn of bonds which mature in April 2014 and is due to repay an inter-company loan for the same amount in April 2012.
Capital & Regional said it planned to push back these deadlines to 2017 and 2015 respectively.
It is also proposing mandatory amortisation to reduce the inter-company loan to £600m by 2014. Among other proposals is the injection of £155m of retained cash towards the loan and capital expenditure.
The group, which has been hit by falling property values, is also seeking to reduce the fund’s loan to value ratio from 83% next year to 65% in 2014. Bondholders and unitholders in the fund will vote on the plans next month.
The London-based group said the objective of the restructuring plan was to, “mitigate the existing 2012 refinancing risk by ensuring that the Fund has a robust medium-term financing structure, giving it flexibility to de-lever over a sensible time frame and create future value”.
It added: “The proposals will involve further asset disposals and/or the injection of new equity into the fund to achieve the target LTVs [loan to values].”
Capital & Regional also operates Cardigan Fields in Leeds and Xscape in Castlefield through its X-Leisure joint venture.
