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(Alliance News) - Supermarket Income REIT PLC on Thursday said it has completed a debt refinancing exercise, reducing its loan-to-value ratio by 6 percentage points, and sealed an unsecured debt facility with a new lender.
The London-based real estate investment trust, which is focused on UK grocery stores, said that overall it reduced its LTV ratio to 34% from 40% in December, and the weighted average term of debt is now in excess of four years.
Supermarket Income said the refinancing involved cancelling two of its shorter-dated debt facilities. These included a GBP77.5 million revolving credit facility with Barclays and Royal Bank of Canada, and a GBP62.1 million unsecured debt facility from a banking syndicate.
The trust also refinanced an existing secured interest-only GBP150 million RCF with HSBC, adding a new GBP50 million secured three-year RCF with a GBP75 million uncommitted accordion option. The RCF also has two one-year extension options and a margin of 170 basis points over the sterling overnight index average (SONIA).
Finally, Supermarket Income completed a new GBP67 million unsecured three-year debt facility with Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp, with two one-year extension options and a 140 bps over SONIA margin.
"We are very pleased to be working with new lender SMBC in the refinancing of the company's debt facilities whilst benefitting from the continuing support of our existing relationship banks," said Ben Green, director of Supermarket Income's investment advisor Atrato Capital Ltd.
Supermarket Income said its available undrawn committed facilities exceed GBP100 million while over 60% of its debt facilities are now unsecured, up from 48% in December.
The company also extended the term of its hedging arrangements to match the maturity of its debt facilities, using the value of its existing interest rate hedges and at no additional cost to Supermarket Income. All of its drawn debt is now either fixed rate or hedged to a fixed rate.
"The company continues to be able to access debt financing at attractive margins, however, given the current macroeconomic environment the board considers it prudent to maintain a lower LTV," Green continued.
Supermarket Income shares were down 0.3% at 77.30 pence in London on Friday morning.
By Emma Curzon, Alliance News reporter
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