Centro Properties Group has secured a $300 million loan facility for the Centro Retail Trust (CER) and Centro Australia Wholesale Fund (CAWF).
Macquarie Bank will provide $100 million under the facility, while GIC Real Estate will provide the rest. The facility is available for three years.
The loan along with a $5 million payment by CER will be used to repay outstanding commercial mortgage backed securities (CMBS) that matured last Friday.
"We are pleased that CER and CAWF have completed the refinance with these lenders," Centro chief executive Glenn Rufrano said.
Centro manages a $20 billion commercial property portfolio, consisting of supermarkets in Australia, New Zealand and the US.
Two-thirds of the properties are located in the US, which made Centro especially susceptible to the impact of the US sub-prime crisis and the subsequent collapse of the CMBS market.
In August, the company recorded a full-year loss of $3.5 billion, and revealed its debts had spiralled to more than $6 billion. CER reported a loss of $2.7 billion over the 2009 financial year.
Yet, the company's underlying results, which strip out property devaluations, currency effects and derivative mark-to-market adjustments, still show a profit of $230 million
During the company's annual general meeting of shareholders last month, Rufrano, who will step down in February next year, said the debt stabilisation agreement reached with banks in January has bought Centro more time to focus on its property operations and long-term strategies.
