Austrian listed property group Immofinanz said on Wednesday it has secured refinancings for a volume of €1.6 bn during the 2017 financial year.
This volume represents roughly 60% of the group’s financial liabilities as of 30 September 2017 and covers extensions as well as new borrowings. The transactions will reduce future interest expense by roughly €18.3 mln per year.
'We successfully utilised the currently very attractive interest rate environment and also significantly improved our credit profile with the refinancing arranged to date,' commented Stefan Schönauer, CFO of Immofinanz.
The combination of properties by asset class into specific portfolios resulted in more economically advantageous conditions, Immofinanz said, pointing to the €205 mln refinancing of a 140,000 m2 office portfolio in Warsaw as a case in point.
The five-year loan was provided by Berlin Hyp and Erste Group Bank and is secured by seven office buildings in Warsaw, specifically, the Park Postepu office building, Nimbus, Brama Zachodnia, Equator, Crown Point and the Crown Tower.
The refinancings allowed the group to nearly half the volume of outstanding bonds with historically high interest rates from €628 mln at year-end 2016 to €330 mln at present.
Immofinanz's net loan-to-value ratio dropped to 42.3% at the end of September 2017, compared with 49.0% at the end of December 2016. Its average financing costs, excluding derivatives, equalled 2.05% at the end of September 2017, down from 2.64% at year-end 2016.
