£84.5m Seven Year Term Facility with M&G

RNS Number : 6307P

Civitas Social Housing PLC

19 February 2021

 

19 February 2021

CIVITAS SOCIAL HOUSING PLC

("Civitas" or the "Company")

£84.5m Seven Year Term Facility with M&G

The Board of Civitas Social Housing PLC is pleased to announce that the Company has secured a new seven year term, interest only, loan facility of £84.55m (the "Facility") from M&G Investment Management Limited ("M&G"), a new lender to the Company.

The Facility is priced at 2.75% above a fixed rate set by reference to the LIBOR swap rate of the loan term, and is repayable seven years from the date of utilisation.  It is secured by an existing portfolio of specialist supported living assets.

The Facility is designed to support the Company's continuing growth plans and Civitas intends to utilise the proceeds of the Facility during 2021 to enable the purchase of high-quality properties that form part of the pipeline of new transactions.  This in turn is expected to further enhance both rental income and in due course dividend cover.

The drawdown of the Facility will increase the Company's LTV (based on gross portfolio assets) to 34.6% maintaining the Company's ongoing objective of a preferred gearing level of  c. 35% of gross portfolio asset value with a ceiling of 40% of gross portfolio asset value.

Michael Wrobel, Chairman of Civitas, commented:   "We are delighted to have secured this new loan facility from M&G, a leading institutional lender with extensive experience and understanding of the social housing sector.  We expect this loan to be utilised over the coming months to bring forward our extensive pipeline of high quality properties and continue to deliver on our dual mission of stable long-term income for our shareholders and excellent long-term accommodation for the residents in our properties."

Duncan Batty, Director, M&G Investment Management Limited , added: "We are very pleased to provide this new seven year facility for Civitas to enable the Company to continue to expand its portfolio of dedicated care-based acommodation."

ENDS

For further information, please contact:

Civitas Investment Management Limited

Paul Bridge                                      Tel: [phone]

Andrew Dawber                                   Tel: [phone]

Panmure Gordon

Sapna Shah                                           Tel: [phone]

Tom Scrivens Tel: [phone]

Liberum Capital Limited

Gillian Martin / Chris Clarke Tel: [phone]

Buchanan

Helen Tarbet / Henry Wilson   Tel: [phone]

Hannah Ratcliff / George Beale    [e-mail]

Notes:

Civitas Social Housing PLC (CSH) was created in 2016 by Civitas Investment Management Limited as the first dedicated London listed REIT, to raise long-term, sustainable, institutional capital to invest in care-based social homes across the UK. So far, CSH has completed more than 120 individual transactions to build the largest portfolio of its kind that has been independently valued on an IFRS basis at £901.1million. CSH provides homes for 4,295 working age adults with long-term care needs, in 619 bespoke properties that are supported by 118 specialist care providers, 16 approved providers over 164 individual local authority areas.

 

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