Hammerson has signed a £400m private placement with 11 institutional investors from the US and the UK.
The placement will fund in January 2017 and will repay short-term bank facilities used for recent acquisitions in Dublin and Birmingham.
Hammerson bought the £175m Grand Central shopping centre in Birmingham with Canadian Pension Plan last year, alongside various assets in Ireland through the acquisition of the Jewel Portfolio with Allianz Real Estate.
The notes were priced on 13 October 2016 with a weighted average coupon at a fixed rate of 1.7%, an equivalent nominal value of $488m (£400m) and weighted average maturity of nine years.
Timon Drakesmith, chief financial officer at Hammerson, said the funding locked in long-dated funding at all-time-low interest rates.
“Being Hammerson’s second issuance into this market, we are delighted to have built upon the relationships with debt investors from our first placement in 2013 as well as introducing six new investors. We believe this is the largest ever private placement for a UK property company,” he said.
The notes are denominated in euros (€177m), sterling (£50m) and dollars ($232m), with the dollar portion being swapped to fixed euro (€210m). There are maturities at seven, nine, 11 and 14 years.
The placement will extend Hammerson’s weighted average debt maturity, which averaged six years at 30 June, by 0.8 years.
Barclays, RBS and Santander acted as agents on the transaction.
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