a-iTrust – BT

Ascendas India Trust, Chip Eng Seng secure loans

Trust gets $50m for refinancing, CES unit gets $60m for repayment

REAL estate business trust Ascendas India Trust (a-iTrust) and construction and property group Chip Eng Seng Corporation have secured loan facilities of $50 million and $60 million respectively – the former for refinancing and the latter for repayment of notes issued by a subsidiary.

For a-iTrust, its $50 million short-term loan, which matured on March 31, has been refinanced by the lenders, Citibank and DBS Bank, from April 1 under a new loan expiring on Sept 30, 2010, but at a higher interest rate.

The rate is 600 basis points above the Singapore dollar swap offer rate – which has been fixed at 1.046 per cent till May 29 – and works out to 7.046 per cent.

a-iTrust said that the impact of the higher interest rate on distribution to unitholders is less than 0.3 cent per unit for the financial year 2009/10.

This is due to the low gearing level, which was forecast to be below 10 per cent as at March 31.

Also, 40 per cent of the loan proceeds will be used for construction of new buildings, and the related interest expense will be capitalised.

a-iTrust,which owns real-estate for business use in India, added that its portfolio remains stable with a 98 per cent occupancy rate.

It has also renewed 90 per cent of the leases which expired in the fourth quarter ended March 31, resulting in a full-year tenant retention rate of 87 per cent.

More information on its performance is due on April 28 when it announces its full-year results.

For Chip Eng Seng Corporation, the $60 million loan was granted by Standard Chartered Bank to subsidiary CEL Development to finance the repayment of certain notes issued by the unit under a multi-currency medium term note programme.