Hercules Unit Trust Completes ?350m Financing

RNS Number : 7011O

British Land Co PLC

22 September 2011

 



                                                22 September 2011

Hercules Unit Trust Completes £350 million Financing

British Land announces that Hercules Unit Trust (HUT), the specialist retail warehouse fund advised by British Land and in which it has a 38.6% interest, has signed a new £350 million five year loan facility underwritten by Aareal Bank AG.

An initial £250 million term loan will be used to repay half of the £500 million outstanding under the existing credit facility that expires in October 2012. The interest rate on this term loan has been swapped to a fixed rate, resulting in an all-in rate of 4% per annum including margin and arrangement fees, compared to 5.25% payable under the existing facility.

A further £100 million revolving loan facility will provide flexibility for the Fund in respect of acquisitions, disposals and further general business purposes. In conjunction with existing cash reserves, this revolving facility will enable the Fund to serve a redemption notice on the £194 million 10% subordinated convertible notes to meet the earliest redemption date in January 2012.

Aareal has underwritten the provision of the entire facility and the interest rate hedge and act as Arranger, Agent and Security Trustee.

During the last 12 months, British Land has completed £860 million of group unsecured loans and a further £595 million has been arranged for British Land related joint ventures and funds.

Enquiries:

Investor Relations

Sally Jones, British Land                                                020 7467 2942

Media

Pip Wood, British Land                                                   020 7467 2838

Guy Lamming, Finsbury Group/                                       020 7251 3801

Gordon Simpson, Finsbury Group

Notes to Editors

About British Land

British Land is one of Europe's largest Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) with total assets, owned or managed, of £15.2 billion (British Land share £9.9 billion), as valued at 30 June 2011. Through our property and finance expertise we attract experienced partners to create properties and environments which are home to over 1,000 different organisations and visited byover 250 million people each year. Our property portfolio is focused on prime retail locations and Central London offices which attract high quality occupiers committed to long leases. Our occupancy rate of 98% and average lease length to first break of 11 years are among the highest of the major UK REITs.

Retail assets account for 64% of our portfolio, over 80% of which are located at prime out-of-town sites. Comprising around 27 million sq ft of retail space across 91 retail warehouse properties, 99 superstores, 12 shopping centres and 10 department stores, the retail portfolio is generally modern, flexible and adaptable to a wide range of formats. Active asset management delivers attractive space to both retailers and consumers.

London offices, located in the City and West End, comprise 33% of the portfolio (rising to an estimated 38% on completion of current developments) amounting to 7 million sq ft of office space including Broadgate, the premier City office campus (50% share) and Regent's Place in the West End. We are investing £1.1 billion to create Central London's largest committed office development programme which will deliver 2.2 million sq ft of high quality space by 2014, including a 700,000 sq ft building at 5 Broadgate, the 610,000 sq ft Leadenhall Building in London's insurance district and the 500,000 sq ft NEQ mixed use scheme at Regent's Place.

Our size and substance demands a responsible approach to business and we focus on five areas which matter most to us and our key stakeholders: managing buildings efficiently; developing sustainable buildings; enhancing biodiversity; exceeding customers' expectations and focusing on local communities. We believe leadership on issues such as sustainability helps drive our performance and is core to our corporate aim of building the best REIT in Europe.

Further details can be found on the British Land website at www.britishland.com

About Hercules Unit Trust

Hercules Unit Trust ('HUT') is a specialist retail warehouse fund managed by Schroders and advised by The British Land Company PLC.

HUT was created in September 2000 as a closed ended Jersey property unit trust to invest in retail warehouses and shopping parks throughout the United Kingdom. HUT's objective is to achieve an annual ungeared total return above the IPD UK Retail Warehouse Index over the life of the Trust. HUT had an initial life of ten years from September 2000. This has been extended to 2020 following unitholder approval.

HUT is the UK's largest specialist retail warehouse property unit trust with a property portfolio of £1.6 billion and comprising 21 retail and shopping parks as valued at 30 June 2011, including Glasgow Fort Shopping Park, Glasgow; Broughton Shopping Park, Chester; and Fort Kinnaird Shopping Park, Edinburgh. The portfolio totals 4.4 million sq ft of retail park space and key tenants include Boots, Next, Arcadia, Home Retail Group, Marks & Spencer, Kingfisher Group and Walmart.

 

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