WORLD PROPERTY CHANNEL ®

Brett White, CBRE CEO

(LOS ANGELES, CA) -- CB Richard Ellis Group, Inc. (NYSE:CBG) has moved to strengthen its balance sheet.

The Los Angeles, CA-based company announced  it has reached agreement with its lenders to extend maturities on about $156.6 million of debt by offering certain holders the ability to swap into new or existing tranches with longer dated maturities.

"We are pleased to be extending revolver capacity well in advance of its June 2011 maturity. says Brett White, president and chief executive officer of CB Richard Ellis. "The loan extensions provide added flexibility in managing our capital structure,"

White says the Company transferred about $132.5 million of its $358 million Revolver credit facility (expiring June 2011) into its existing Revolver 2 credit facility expiring June 2013.

Total Revolver 2 borrowing capacity is now $333 million. A lender also agreed to swap approximately $24.1 million of existing Tranche A term debt (maturing December 2011) to a new Tranche A-3a maturing December 2013. The new Tranche A-3a has identical pricing to the existing Tranche A-3 and amortization of 1% per year.

In conjunction with these extensions, lenders also opted to exchange $115.5M of Tranche A debt for new Tranche A-4 debt. The new debt will have the same maturity date as the existing Tranche A debt, reduced required amortization and an initial higher interest rate of 50 basis points (increasing by an additional 225 basis points on the balance outstanding, if any, on April 1, 2010).

White says "these moves are consistent with actions taken to date to strengthen the company's balance sheet, including the issuance of equity, pre-payment of debt and extension of existing maturities."

At the end of 2009, the company had about $1.25 billion of cash and undrawn revolving credit capacity. The company also ended the year with a covenant leverage ratio of 2.23x, as compared to its maximum allowable limit of 4.25x.

 

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