Ryman Hospitality Properties, Inc., a lodging real estate investment trust (REIT) specializing in group-oriented, destination hotel assets in urban and resort markets, today completed a series of refinancing transactions that were previously announced as pending in conjunction with the company's release of first-quarter earnings on May 2, 2017.
Colin Reed, chairman and chief executive officer of Ryman Hospitality Properties, commented, "As we outlined on our first quarter earnings call earlier this month, the state of our large group hospitality business has never been better, with strong demand and bookings growth, limited competitive supply, and several major investments underway across the portfolio setting us up for more growth to come. We are pleased to take advantage of this strength and favorable capital market conditions to refinance our floating rate debt and bolster an already solid balance sheet.
In total, these transactions are leverage neutral, as the proceeds of both the Term Loan A and the upsized Term Loan B are being used to pay down balances on the Revolving Credit Facility. This combined transaction achieves several great outcomes. We lowered our cost of capital by significantly improving pricing on our Term Loan B and Revolver, moved our earliest debt maturity out by two years from 2019 to 2021, and created ample capacity under our Revolver, which provides additional liquidity and flexibility to fund our current and future potential growth investments."
Led by Wells Fargo, the company refinanced its existing secured $700 Million Revolving Credit Facility (Revolver) with no change to the composition of its long-tenured bank group. Maturity of the Revolver was extended from 2019 to 2021, and pricing will be determined by a leverage-based pricing grid ranging from 155 to 240 basis points over LIBOR, representing an improvement of 5 basis points as compared to the previous Revolver.
The company also obtained from the same lenders a new secured $200 Million Term Loan A maturing in 2022. Pricing of this loan will also be determined by a leverage-based pricing grid ranging from 150 to 235 basis points over LIBOR, which is 5 basis points favorable as compared to the new Revolver.
Led by Deutsche Bank, on May 11, 2017, the company also refinanced and upsized its secured Term Loan B from $389 Million outstanding at the end of the first quarter of 2017 to $500 million. The maturity of the Term Loan B was extended from 2022 to 2024. Pricing of 225 basis points over LIBOR represents an improvement of 50 basis points as compared to the previous outstanding Term Loan B. Institutional interest in the new Term Loan B was high and the deal was oversubscribed, allowing the company to issue the new loan at par.