BAA says it has made ‘significant progress’ towards refinancing its debt.
The airport operator which runs six UK airports including Heathrow and Stansted, has arranged a loan of £626m from a group of eight major international banks which it says marks “significant progress towards refinancing of the group’s subordinated debt of £1.57 billion.”
In a statement it says it intends to prepay up to £1.1bn of the debt in September from a combination of proceeds from the new loan, drawings of up to £375m from its revolving credit facilities and proceeds from the sale of its stake in the airport property partnership APP in June.
BAA, which is owned by Spanish company Ferrovial, said it had initially targeted a loan of £500m but increased the size to meet “significant excess demand from new and existing relationship banks.”
It added: “BAA intends to refinance the remainder of the subordinated facility from a variety of sources. These may include proceeds of further non-core asset disposals, bank and/or institutional loans and capital markets issuance.”
by Debbie Ward
