Morgans Hotel Group Co. (Nasdaq: MHGC) ("MHG") today announced that it has successfully amended and extended the non-recourse first mortgage loans secured by Hudson and Mondrian in Los Angeles until October 2011.
Following the transaction, the amounts outstanding on the first mortgage loans are now $201.2 million secured by Hudson and $103.5 million secured by Mondrian in Los Angeles. MHG paid down the loan on Hudson with $8.0 million from cash on hand and $8.0 million from cash in a restricted account designated for Hudson and paid down the loan on Mondrian in LA with $8.5 million from cash on hand and $8.5 million from a restricted account designated for Mondrian in LA. MHG will have significantly less interest expense for the remaining term of the debt as its interest rate swaps on the mortgage and mezzanine loans, which expired in July 2010, had swapped LIBOR to approximately 5.0%, whereas LIBOR today is less than 50 basis points. MHG has replaced the swaps with interest rate caps. The interest rate spreads were increased slightly to LIBOR plus 1.03% on the Hudson loan and LIBOR plus 1.64% on the Mondrian in Los Angeles loan.
"These extensions cap a long list of successful transactions that we have completed to extend and refinance debt and add liquidity and flexibility to our capital structure. We appreciate the vote of confidence from yet another of our lenders. With the completion of these extensions, we have now extended or refinanced all significant near-term consolidated maturities and we are taking advantage of strong operating trends to drive growth across our Company," said Marc Gordon, President of Morgans Hotel Group.
