Great Portland Estates, the property company, has paid £18.2m to extract itself from an expensive interest rates hedge.

The company, which owns office and retail space in central London, said it had paid the fee to end the hedge on £190m of debt.

As a result of the transaction, Great Portland Estates will pay an average interest charge of 2.9% on its debt, reduced from a previous level of 5.2%, it said in a short statement yesterday.

Daily Telegraph