Great Portland issues £150m bond offering to boost spend
GREAT Portland Estates yesterday announced plans to launch £150m of unsecured convertible bonds to help increase its firepower to fund developments.
The west end property firm is currently building four schemes with another five due to kick-off in the next 24 months including the huge redevelopment of the Royal Mail’s old sorting office on Rathbone Place.
Great Portland said the bond will help pay for part of these developments, which are expected to cost £418m, while also helping to refinance its recent £90m Oxford House acquisition in the west end.
The bonds, due in 2018, will be issued at face value and will have a coupon of one per cent a year.
The initial conversion price – the price at which the bond can be converted into stock –has been set at £7.145 per share.
“We are very pleased with the appetite investors have shown for this convertible bond which was significantly oversubscribed,” Great Portland’s finance director Nick Sanderson said.
JP Morgan Securities and Royal Bank of Scotland acted as joint bookrunners on the deal.