I believe Nihilism has provided a great response to your 2nd...

I believe Nihilism has provided a great response to your 2nd last paragraph - the one which specifically refers to balance sheet resilience. How can you only look at one half of the balance sheet when commenting on the balance sheet?

To your question on why they would 'replace' low interest debt with higher interest debt, the answer is simple. The note is unsecured. This means it props up the book so that the NAB loan can increase without triggering any ratio covenants. The rate of the note is much cheaper than equity so is a great tool to use to increase the equity portion of the book without actually using equity.

One more thing, where does your assumption that the fee will reduce to 3% originate? This is a huge, unsubstantiated and wildly speculative assumption which currently has no bearing in reality.