Cabot Unveils $200 Mil Securities Program

BOSTON-Cabot Industrial Trust has established a medium-term note program that will allow the REIT to issue up to $200 million in debt securities, company officials have disclosed. The lead agent on the program, launched with an initial $55-million issuance, is Merrill Lynch & Co.

“This medium term note program provides Cabot with additional flexibility in accessing the public debt market as well as in managing our conservative debt structure,” Cabot CFO Franz Colloredo-Mansfeld said in announcing the initiative. “We were pleased with the investor demand for our initial round of financing.”

Under that round, Cabot dispersed $55 million in senior unsecured notes that will be used to pay down amounts outstanding under Cabot’s unsecured credit facility. Rated Baa2 by Moody’s, BBB- (with a positive outlook) by Standard & Poor’s, and BBB by Duff & Phelps, $40 million of the notes will mature in September 2010 at a coupon of $8.5%. The remaining $15 million, which bear a coupon rate of 8.25%, will mature in September 2005.

In another development, Cabot also declared a dividend for the quarter ending September 30th of 35 cents per common share, payable on October 27th to stockholders of record as of October 10th. The dividend indicates an annualized rate of $1.42, according to Cabot, a national developer, owner and operator of industrial properties. The REIT was formed two years ago by Boston real estate legend Ferdinand Colloredo-Mansfeld, who, in the 1960s and 1970s, was among the first to develop industrial space in Eastern Massachusetts.