Hammerson to buy back bonds at 7.355 pc premium

26th Apr 2012 10:56

Property group Hammerson has been snowed under with Dutch auction bids from investors keen to sell back their bonds to the company, and has had to scale down its tender offer.The company expects to accept for purchase around 92.3% of all bonds tendered as per the non-competitive tender instructions of its recently announced tender offer to buy back up to €700m of 4.875% bonds due 2015.As at the expiration deadline for the tender offer, €243.1m worth of bonds (based on their nominal redemption value) had been tendered for purchase pursuant to non-competitive tender instructions,No bonds tendered pursuant to the competitive tender instructions will be bought.The cash purchase price the company will pay for Bonds validly tendered and accepted for purchase will be 107.355% of the nominal amount of the relevant bonds. The company will also pay an accrued interest payment in respect of bonds accepted for purchase pursuant to the offer, to compensate bond holders for missing out on the next coupon payment.All bonds repurchased will be cancelled, furthering Hammerson's objective of reducing its running cost of maintaining its debt by using excess current liquidity to reduce the number of short-dated bonds it has in the market. JH