Great Portland Estates, which owns a third of offices in the West End of London, will take a one-off charge of £68m in its next financial year after buying back £130m of high interest rate debt to reduce the cost of borrowing.
It will put the proposal to buy back the 10.75% debentures to shareholders in April.
The move will reduce the cost of borrowing from 9.5% five years ago to 6.5%. It will remove the last high-coupon debt from its balance sheet. The shares dropped 7p to 267.5p.
Financial Times 14/03/02 page 25
