Capital Shopping Centres secures new debt facility
CAPITAL Shopping Centres (CSC), the UK’s biggest mall owner, has secured a £375m credit facility from a consortium of five banks to help provide “general liquidity” to the company.
The owner of Manchester’s Trafford Centre and the MetroCentre in Gateshead said yesterday that the revolving facility would replace a previous, undrawn £248m facility that was due to expire in June 2013.
The deal was agreed with HSBC and Lloyds Banking Group as joint co-ordinators, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse and UBS.
The new facility has a minimum term of five years with an initial margin over LIBOR of 175 basis points. Lenders have the option to extend the term by two years.
Matthew Roberts, finance director at CSC, said: “The new facility provides us with considerable flexibility over the next five years, potentially seven, and underpins our robust financing position.”
The group owns 10 of the UK’s 25 largest malls and agreed earlier this month to buy Westfield’s 75 per cent stake in Nottingham’s Broadmarsh centre in a £55m deal.
CSC’s share’s, which closed down by 1.79 per cent yesterday to 296.9 per cent, have tumbled since its recent interim statement over analyst concerns that its portfolio is overvalued, based on the price of its lettings.
ADVISERS: LLOYDS AND HSBC
SIMON ALLOCCA
LLOYDS BANK CORPORATE MARKETS
EACH of the five lenders to Capital had an advisory role but among the army of bankers was Simon Allocca, head of loan markets at Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets, a loan syndication expert and former managing director of BNP Paribas.
With more than 20 years’ experience working across Europe on loan origination and syndication, Allocca has led transactions such as raising a highly oversubscribed €2.8bn (£2.4bn) syndicated loan for builders merchant Wolseley in 2006, and a $1.1bn three-year facility for Russian food retailer X5 Retail in 2008.
Since joining Lloyds in September 2010, Allocca led Lloyds’ contribution to the refinancing of £1.1bn of debt for housebuilder Barratt Developments.
He also helped to put together £410m of new bank debt facilities for insurance broker Towergate as part of its £930m debt and £200m equity takeover by Advent Capital.
Allocca started his career at Barclays before moving to Robert Fleming and then Fuji Bank before being poached by BNP to be part of its new loan syndication team.
Allocca has also been a frequent commentator on the health of loan markets in recent years, and has regularly published analysis of how loan and bond markets have responded to the crises of the past three years.
Lloyds was CSC’s joint coordinator alongside HSBC. Bank of America Merrill Lynch, HSBC and Lloyds were mandated lead arrangers and bookrunners; while Credit Suisse and UBS were also both mandated lead arrangers.