Westfield Trust yesterday announced it had raised A$750 million from the sale of unsecured notes and call options over WFT Units.
Late Friday, Westfield said the Unsecured Notes and Call Options would be sold by Westfield Trust to Deutsche Bank. On the back of this, Deutsche Bank has sold Exchangeable Securities in European markets pursuant to an underwritten book-build which was undertaken overnight.
Westfield Managing Director, Steven Lowy, said the public raising is the largest public issue of this type of security by an Australian entity and it is the first to be undertaken by an Australian Listed Property Trust.
The key terms of the Exchangeable Securities to be issued by Deutsche Bank are reflected in the Unsecured Notes and Options to be issued by WFT.
The WFT Unsecured Notes, which have a five year term maturing on January 5, 2009, have an interest coupon with a margin of 10 basis points over floating rates.
The WFT Call Options, which are exercisable at any time over the five year period, have a strike price of $3.75 per Unit reflecting a premium of 12.7% over yesterday’s closing price for WFT Units. In all, the Options if exercised will convert into approximately 200 million WFT Units, which represents 9.1% of WFT’s current issued capital.
The proceeds of WFT’s raising, which are anticipated to be received in early December 2003, will be used to pay down existing bank debt and provide additional capacity for future investments.
“This raising will enable Westfield Trust to diversify its funding sources at an attractive margin. In addition, this raising provides the Trust with the opportunity, over time, to refinance debt with an equity issue to a new base of European investors at a historically high Unit price of $3.75” Lowy said.
The Exchangeable Securities will be listed in Luxembourg
Westfield Trust Backgrounder:
Westfield Trust is Australia’s largest listed property trust with a portfolio of 51 shopping centres – 39 in Australia and 12 in New Zealand.
The Westfield Trust portfolio comprises over 3.1 million square metres of retail space, over 9,500 retail outlets and generates over $14.0 billion of retail sales.
It has total assets of A$12.4 billion and a market capitalisation of A$7.4 billion as at 30 June 2003.
Distribution for the six months to 30 June 2003 was 12.22 cents per unit, up 4.2% over the previous corresponding period.
The distribution for Westfield Trust for the 12 months to 31 December 2002 was 23.55 cents per unit, up 2.8% on the corresponding period last year.
Since listing in 1982 to 30 June 2003, the Trust has achieved a compound annual rate of return of 15.8% compared with the Australian Stock Exchange Property Trust Index return of 14.0% and the Australian Stock Exchange All Ordinaries Index return of 13.8%.
