UK REIT Liberty International said on Friday that it has received a new seven-year financing facility from a consortium of seven banks for the Lakeside shopping centre in Thurrock, near London. The £525 mln (EUR 600 mln) funding was arranged by WestImmo and Eurohypo and the lenders are DekaBank, Eurohypo, Helaba, Lloyds, Pfandbriefbank, Santander and WestImmo.

UK REIT Liberty International said on Friday that it has received a new seven-year financing facility from a consortium of seven banks for the Lakeside shopping centre in Thurrock, near London. The £525 mln (EUR 600 mln) funding was arranged by WestImmo and Eurohypo and the lenders are DekaBank, Eurohypo, Helaba, Lloyds, Pfandbriefbank, Santander and WestImmo.

Lakeside is owned and managed by Capital Shopping Centres, a UK prime regional shopping centre owner, manager and developer owned by Liberty International. Opened in 1990, Lakeside is one of the UK's leading regional shopping centres providing 1.43 million sq. ft. (133,000 m2) of retail floorspace.

The proceeds of the loan will be used together with the group's cash resources to redeem in full the current total outstanding loans of £545.8 mln secured on Lakeside otherwise repayable in July 2011, including the redemption at par of the £445.8 mln of associated CMBS notes, the company said.

The existing loan has a current funding cost of about 5.5%. Eurohypo is facility agent and WestImmo was documentation agent. The borrower was advised by Linklaters and the lenders by Allen & Overy.

Liberty International's finance director, Ian Durant, said that the loan 'substantially improves the group's overall debt maturity profile and refinances one of the group's largest debt maturities, leaving 2015 as the next significant date for repayment of CMBS related debt.'