Routine Loan Deal Becomes an Ordeal as Bank Capital Tightens
- Equity Residential faced longer process for refinancing
- Banks fret about stricter capital requirements, strong dollar
This article is for subscribers only.
Equity Residential, one of the biggest apartment landlords in the US, normally finds refinancing its bank loans to be easy. This year, it was a longer journey.
For the company’s $2.5 billion backup line of credit known as a revolver, lenders have historically treated the process like a formality or an administrative task, Chief Financial Officer Robert Garechana said in an interview. This time, there were many more discussions, often focusing on what business banks would get from the company in return, he said.