French SIIC Gecina has placed a €500 mln bond issue maturing in January 2029 with a record low 1% coupon.
The Paris-based REIT said that the coupon was the lowest ever achieved for a bond issue by Gecina, combined with the highest ever maturiy for the group.
The bond issue was more than two times oversubscribed, Gecina said, by a top-tier base of pan-European investors.
CM-CIC, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JP Morgan, Mediobanca and Société Générale were the bookrunners for the issue.
Last week, Gecina's bid to take over French rival Foncière de Paris (FdP) was thwarted when it failed to reach the threshhold of 50% of FdP's stock, with just 14% of the company's capital tendered by shareholders in response to Gecina's public offering. Eurosic's successful, rival bid took its holdings in FdP to 77%.
Commenting on the result, Gecina said that it planned 'to continue moving forward with its strategy, built around a highly selective policy for acquisitions, alongside sales of non-strategic assets that will generate capital gains'.
The FdP securities submitted to Gecina will be returned to their owners.
Gecina is currently gradually deploying a €3.6 bn pipeline, including €1.1 bn of projects already underway that it said would generate nearly €75 mln of additional annual rent by 2018.
