Precinct sets interest rate on $75M of bonds at 5.54%

Precinct Properties New Zealand, which has increasingly been focusing on Auckland office space, has set the interest rate for its $75 million bond issue, which it will use to repay bank debt.

The Auckland-based property investor set the rate at 5.54 percent per annum, 1.4 percentage points above the seven-year swap rate after the $50 million issue was oversubscribed to its $25 million maximum in a bookbuild, it said in a statement. That margin was just above the middle of Precinct's indicative range of between 1.3 and 1.45 percentage points above the swap rate.

The offer was reserved for clients of the participants in the bookbuild and didn't have a public pool. The seven-year bonds will be issued on Dec. 17.

Shares of Precinct rose 1.8 percent to $1.135, and have gained 13 percent this year.