REIT Real Estate Investors plc (LON: RLE) announced that it had changed its variable interest rate facility to a fixed rate loan facility.
The loan sum amounts to £10.0 million and will be fixed at an annual interest rate of 3.129% per annum until 30 November 2023. Following completion of the new facility, the Company noted that 77% of its debt will be in fixed interest rate form, without increasing the average cost of its overall debt, which remains at 3.7%.
Real Estate Investors added that its new facility with Lloyds is secured against a portfolio of the Group’s properties. Currently, the Company holds a total portfolio of 1.53 million sq ft of commercial property across all sectors in the Midlands.
Real Estate Investors comments
Responding to the update, Company CEO Paul Bassi stated,
“In line with our stated strategy, we have taken advantage of the low interest environment to fix this facility with Lloyds Bank which has given us increased certainty over our cost of borrowings without raising our overall costs.”
“We are well placed, given our existing cash and banking facilities, to maintain our opportunistic approach to acquiring further criteria compliant assets and we anticipate concluding some of our pipeline acquisitions in the near future.”
Investor notes
The Company’s shares have rallied 1.89% or 1.00p following the news, up to 54.00p per share 10/10/19 12:58 BST. Liberum analysts reiterated their ‘Buy’ rating on Real Estate Investors stock, their p/e ratio is 13.77 and their dividend yield is inviting at 6.72%.
Elsewhere in property development and estate agency news, there have been updates from; Shaftesbury plc (LON: SHB), Rightmove Plc (LON: RMV), Berkeley Group Holdings Ltd (LON: BKG), Redrow plc (LON: RDW), U+I Group PLC (LON: UAI), Hunters Property PLC (LON: HUNT) and GCP Student Living plc (LON: DIGS).