

Hammerson is funding its share of the purchase of NAMA’s €1.85bn Project Jewel with a new short-term, €1bn revolving credit facility (RCF) from its existing lenders.
The facility, which matures in March 2017, reflects a loan-to-value of 81% on Hammerson’s €1.23bn share of the overall purchase price.
A club of five banks, some of which also provided the UK REIT with a £415m RCF in April, are supplying the new loan: BNP Paribas, Lloyds, JP Morgan, HSBC and Deutsche Bank.


In a statement, Hammerson said: “The new credit facility will be refinanced from a combination of an acceleration of the current disposal programme and future capital markets issuance.”
“During the course of 2015, Hammerson announced disposals of £155m recycling capital into those assets which are best positioned to deliver value creation for shareholders,” said the firm.
“We are currently marketing a further £200m of assets for sale. We also intend to execute previously identified disposal opportunities by the end of 2016 which could total up to a further £300m.”
The company said it remained committed to “a long-term strategy of prudent leverage in line with its policies of less than 40% loan-to-value and 10x net debt to EBITDA ratio”.
Hammerson partnered with German investor Allianz Real Estate last month to purchase Project Jewel’s portfolio of loans valued at around €2.6bn. It was the NAMA’s, Ireland’s bad bank, biggest transaction to date and attracted stiff competition for the assets.
The portfolio includes loans secured against Ireland’s largest shopping centre, Dundrum Town Centre in Dublin, as well as Ilac and Pavilions shopping centres, also both in Dublin.