Rayonier announced it has entered into a credit agreement with CoBank, ACB, as administrative agent, and a syndicate of Farm Credit institutions and other commercial banks to provide $550 million of new credit facilities, including a five-year $200 million revolving credit facility and a nine-year $350 million term loan facility.

The new credit facilities will be used to refinance the company’s existing revolving credit facility and senior exchangeable notes (due in August 2015), as well as fund an anticipated capital infusion into the company’s New Zealand joint venture for repayment of JV indebtedness.

As an eligible Farm Credit System loan, the term loan facility will allow Rayonier to receive annual patronage payments, which should lower the company’s net effective interest cost.

The company has entered into an interest rate swap transaction to fix the cost of the term loan facility over its nine-year term. Based on the swap rate, the company’s current leverage ratio and the pricing grid, the all-in fixed-rate cost of the term loan facility (net of estimated patronage payments) is expected to be approximately 3.3% and the floating-rate cost of the revolving credit facility will be LIBOR + 1.25%.