Textainer Group Holdings announced that Textainer Marine Containers VII Limited, an indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary of the company, issued $829 million of fixed-rate asset-backed notes, comprised of $532 million Series 2020-2 Class A Notes, $76 million Series 2020-2 Class B Notes, $213 million Series 2020-3 Class A Notes and $8 million Series 2020-3 Class B Notes.

The Notes were issued to qualified institutional buyers pursuant to Rule 144A under the Securities Act of 1933 and to non-U.S. persons in accordance with Regulation S promulgated under the Act. The Class A and Class B Notes were rated A(sf) and BBB(sf), respectively, by Standard & Poor’s. The Notes have a fixed coupon, a weighted average life of approximately five years and are secured by a pledge of TMCL VII’s assets. Proceeds from the issuance were used primarily to pay down debt in our secured debt facility, revolving credit facility and pay in full our 2017-2 and 2018-1 Notes.

“These Notes allow us to benefit from the current low rate environment to further decrease our borrowing costs while creating additional capacity for future container investments. Following today’s issuance, our blended effective interest rate now stands at approximately 3.10%,” Michael K. Chan, Textainer executive vice president and chief financial officer, said.

Textainer has operated since 1979 and is one of the world’s largest lessors of intermodal containers with approximately 3.5 million TEU in our owned and managed fleet.