Griffin Capital Company, LLC announced the operating partnership of Griffin Capital Essential Asset REIT, Inc. entered into a loan agreement with Bank of America, N.A., UBS AG and KeyBank National Association for an aggregate loan amount of $375,000,000. GCEAR utilized the net proceeds to pay down a portion of its credit facility led by KeyBank National Association.

“By using the proceeds of the financing to pay down our revolving line of credit, we created additional capacity to meet our future capital requirements,” said Michael Escalante, President of GCEAR and Chief Investment Officer of Griffin Capital. “This strategic move also allows us to extend maturities on our debt to more closely align with the REIT’s average lease duration while taking advantage of today’s historically low interest rate environment.  We are also very pleased to have executed a rate lock before the recent run-up in the long bond – thereby saving GCEAR over one million dollars in annual interest expense.”

The full-term, interest only Loan has a duration of ten years and matures on October 1, 2027 with a fixed rate of 3.77 percent.

The refinancing will increase the GCEAR’s fixed rate debt to over 96 percent of the outstanding debt balance, as compared to 77 percent as of June 30, 2017. The Loan is secured by cross-collateralized and cross-defaulted first mortgage liens on ten properties owned by the GCEAR operating partnership, including brand-name tenants such as ACE Hardware Corporation, General Electric Company, State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., T-Mobile West LLC, and Wells Fargo Bank.