Grainger signs new syndicated bank facility

7th Aug 2015 07:48

(ShareCast News) - Residential property owner Grainger has signed a planned refinancing of its syndicated bank facility, reducing its cost and extending its maturity.The company said the new £580m facility, which will represent 44% of total group facilities, will mature in August 2020, extended from July 2016. The margin on the facility has been reduced by 50 basis points to 170 basis points.Grainger said the facility structure enables further pricing benefits to be gained at future lower levels of loan to value. In addition, it said the average cost of debt reduces to around 4.6% from 5.1%, while the average maturity of debt is now around 5.8 years versus 4.4 years as at march 2015.The company said that as at 31 July, net debt stood at around £1.14bn.Finance director Mark Greenwood said: "We have been making considerable progress in diversifying our sources of funding and reducing the cost of our debt facilities, which this refinancing further supports."We will continue to review all other sources to ensure that we have the most competitive cost of debt to pursue our strategy of accelerating our push into the private rented sector."