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Emira receives praise for debt refinancing programme

Greg Booyens, Chief Financial Officer of Emira.
Greg Booyens, Chief Financial Officer of Emira.

Emira Property Fund has successfully refinanced over R1.2 billion of its debt maturing in the current financial year, ending on the 30th of June 2018. The group is attracting keen demand and favourable pricing in the process.

The REIT refinanced maturing secured listed DMTN notes through the issue of new three and five-year notes this past September, with the aim to raise R330 million and the group received bids for R813 million.

This significant over subscription enabled Emira to choose its split between note terms. It assigned R130 million to three-year noted at 145bps above three-month Jibar, achieving extremely attractive pricing at the bottom end of its guidance. The group put R200 million in five-year notes at 160bps above three-month Jibar which was comfortably within its guidance.

Greg Booyens, CFO of Emira comments:

We are extremely happy with the results, especially because we were able to improve the pricing of the notes.

Further, a new seven-year secured note for R100 was issued on the 13th of December after requests were received from investors for a long-term note. The new seven-year note has been issued at attractive pricing of 180bps over three-month Jibar and the funds are being used to refinance other maturing debt.

Booyens adds that Emira keeps investors in its DMTN programme well informed and up-to-date in their understanding of Emira with biannual roadshows:“Regular transparent communication builds good investor relationships and ensures investors are well versed in exactly what they are allocating funds to. This is evident with our new seven-year note, which shows investors are comfortable to take a long-term view on Emira.”

On 1 July 2018, Emira had R2.5 billion of maturing debt to refinance during its financial year to 30 June 2019. With its latest DMTN auction and other initiatives completed, it has already refinanced a significant portion of this.

We’ve delivered on all our debt refinancing requirements to this point and are already approaching halfway in what we need to achieve this financial year. We are seeing good pricing coming from the refinancing coupled with strong demand, which signals that Emira remains a relevant and attractive investment,” concluded Booyens