COLUMBIA, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Corporate Office Properties Trust (NYSE:OFC) announced that its operating partnership, Corporate Office Properties, L.P. priced an underwritten public offering of $600 million of 2.750% Senior Notes due 2031. The Company will fully and unconditionally guarantee the Operating Partnership’s obligations under the 2031 Notes. The Offering is expected to close on March 11, 2021, subject to customary closing conditions.
Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Barclays Capital Inc., BofA Securities, Inc., Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Capital One Securities, Inc., J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc., and PNC Capital Markets LLC are acting as joint book-running managers for the Offering. Additionally, M&T Securities, Inc., Regions Securities LLC, TD Securities (USA) LLC, and U.S. Bancorp Investments, Inc. are acting as co-managers for the Offering.
The Operating Partnership intends to use the net proceeds from the Offering to fund the purchase of any and all of the Operating Partnership’s 3.600% Senior Notes due 2023, fully and unconditionally guaranteed by the Company (the “2023 Notes”), and any and all of the Operating Partnership’s 5.250% Senior Notes due 2024, fully and unconditionally guaranteed by the Company (the “2024 Notes”), pursuant to tender offers being announced separately today, by redemption or otherwise. The balance of net proceeds, if any, will be used for general corporate purposes, including, without limitation, paying down amounts outstanding on the Operating Partnership’s revolving credit facility and other debt repurchases.
2021 Guidance
The Company is maintaining its previously established guidance for funds from operations per share (“FFOPS”), as adjusted for comparability, for the first quarter ending March 31, 2021, and the year ending December 31, 2021. At a future time, the Company intends to file with the Securities and Exchange Commission a Current Report on Form 8-K to update its guidance for earnings per share (“EPS”) and FFOPS, as defined by Nareit, for the same time periods.
About COPT
COPT is a REIT that owns, manages, leases, develops and selectively acquires office and data center properties. The majority of its portfolio is in locations that support the United States Government and its contractors, most of whom are engaged in national security, defense and information technology (“IT”) related activities servicing what it believes are growing, durable, priority missions (“Defense/IT Locations”). The Company also owns a portfolio of office properties located in select urban/urban-like submarkets in the Greater Washington, DC/Baltimore region with durable Class-A office fundamentals and characteristics (“Regional Office Properties”). As of December 31, 2020, the Company derived 87% of its core portfolio annualized rental revenue from Defense/IT Locations and 13% from its Regional Office Properties. As of the same date and including 17 properties owned through unconsolidated joint ventures, COPT’s core portfolio of 179 office and data center shell properties encompassed 20.8 million square feet and was 95.0% leased; the Company also owned one wholesale data center with a critical load of 19.25 megawatts that was 86.7% leased.
