Saturday, December 29, 2012

Ashford Hospitality Trust Completes $112.6 Million Financing On Renaissance Nashville And Westin Princeton


Renaissance Hotel, Nashville, TN
DALLAS, FL /PRNewswire/ -- Ashford Hospitality Trust, Inc. (NYSE: AHT)  announced that the Company, along with its joint venture partner, has closed a $112.6 million loan secured by the Renaissance Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee and the Westin Hotel in Princeton, New Jersey. 

These hotels are part of the Company's Highland Hospitality Portfolio of which Ashford has a 71.74% ownership interest.  Terms described in this press release refer to 100% of the loan indebtedness unless otherwise indicated.

The new financing, which has a five-year term and bears interest at a fixed interest rate of 4.44%, replaces two existing loans with a combined balance of $76.8 million and a weighted average interest rate of 6.05%.

Westin Hotel, Princeton, NJ
At closing, $30 million of the excess loan proceeds were deposited into reserve accounts to be used predominantly for future capital expenditures and $3.8 million were used to pay down the mezzanine debt balance on the overall Highland Hospitality Portfolio.

"This transaction completes the refinancing of the three CIGNA loans in our Highland Hospitality Portfolio," said Monty J. Bennett, Chief Executive Officer of Ashford Hospitality Trust. 

Monty J. Bennett
"With this financing, and the recently announced financing on the Hilton Boston Back Bay, we have increased the weighted average maturity of our debt, lowered our interest expense, paid down more expensive debt with some of the excess proceeds, and reserved funds for future capital expenditures.  

"We continue to actively pursue other early refinancing opportunities in our portfolio to capitalize on the current attractive debt capital markets."



For a complete copy of the company’s news release, please contact:

David Kimichik,
Chief Financial Officer,
 +1-972-490-9600

Elise Chittick,
 Investor Relations,
+1-972-778-9487

Scott Eckstein,
Financial Relations Board,
+1-212-827-3766


No comments:

Post a Comment