LandFund Partners Secures $125 Million Credit Facility with MetLife

First MetLife SOFR based loan in the United States

October 22nd, 2021

LandFund Partners (“LFP”), a farmland investment company, has secured a $125 million credit facility with MetLife Investment Management (MIM). MIM is the institutional asset management business of MetLife, Inc., one of the world’s leading financial services companies. The credit facility will be used to expand LFP Soil Enrichment Fund’s (“SEF”) high-quality row crop farmland portfolio in the Mississippi River Valley.

The credit facility is structured as a $50 million term note with a 2.75% five-year fixed interest rate, along with a $75 million revolving line of credit (RLOC) that has two tranches of $50 million and $25 million. The RLOC tranches can be converted to fixed-rate term notes of up to seven years maturity at SEF’s discretion. As additional farmland properties are acquired by SEF, they can be pledged to the existing collateral pool to expand availability of the RLOC. The RLOC has an interest rate floor of 2.05%.

Notably, the credit facility is the first loan made by MetLife Investment Management in the United States based on the Secured Overnight Financing Rate, or SOFR. SOFR is a broad measure of the cost of borrowing cash overnight collateralized by Treasury securities, and is rapidly becoming adopted as an alternative reference rate to the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR)

“LandFund Partners is the premier emerging farmland manager in the United States and we appreciate the opportunity to work with them as they scale their platform,” said Nina Krause, Southern Regional Director of MetLife Investment Management. “We are also incredibly excited to support Soil Enrichment Fund’s mission to heal our planet by reducing and sequestering greenhouse gases through regenerative farming. Positive environmental impacts and ESG initiatives are important to us at MefLife.”

“MetLife has been an outstanding partner for us over the years. This new $125 million credit facility provides us with flexible debt capital at great terms as we grow SEF,” said John Farris, Founder & CEO of LFP. “Greg Gallaway, Nina Krause, Clayton Howell, and the entire MetLife team have been tremendous to work with. Met was flexible and receptive to our ideas as we worked to create the right financing package for our current capital needs,” added Chris Morris, President & COO of LFP.

To learn more and explore farmland investing, contact [email protected].

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