Royal Bank of Scotland makes student accommodation loan

£35.5m loan backed by eight properties

The Royal Bank of Scotland has loaned Empiric Student Property £35.5m, secured against its UK portfolio.

RBS logo smallThe five-year loan is backed by eight of the specialist REIT’s UK assets. It will be fully hedged via a coterminous interest rate swap with NatWest Bank and the interest payable is equal a margin of 1.9% above the swap rate.

The company is to maintain a gearing level of no more than 40%.

Empiric launched an £85m IPO in June. It is now considering introducing a 12 month share issuance programme to raise more equity to invest.

The improved debt market is now giving companies that managed to take advantage of the favourable IPO market earlier this year and raise equity the opportunity to gear up.