Tyndaris Real Estate closes six loans in busy end to 2015

Debt fund manager Tyndaris Real Estate closed six new loans in the final quarter of 2015 and has made three hires including Imo Skrzypczyk from Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Clark Coffee, partner and head of the property arm of hedge fund Tyndaris, said the real estate team deployed over €100 million of capital in one French, one German and four UK transactions in Q4 2015.

Tyndaris closed its first fund, Tyndaris European Commercial Real Estate Finance with assets under management of €350 million, in February 2015. It originates or invests in whole loans, mezzanine, preferred equity and special situations, from €10 million upwards, mainly in the UK and Germany.

The latest sextet of deals takes the fund’s weighted average loan-to-value to 76 percent. They back a range of office, industrial, residential and hospitality assets.

The real estate lending business was launched in 2013 by Coffee and two other former Detusche Bank real estate bankers, Heath Forusz and David White. Forusz left the business to pursue other interests last April while White stayed and was promoted to partner.

Skrzypczyk, who will report to White, brings experience of the French lending and legal systems having worked on BoAML’s financing and securitisation of Coeur Defense in Paris on behalf of Lone Star.

Also joining to work with White on investment underwriting and execution is associate Enrique Zouein, formerly of Kildare Partners and HIG Capital. Tyndaris has also hired Iain Katimbo, from Valiance, as a fund controller.

Tyndaris began building up the real estate team last year when Daniel Stengel joined as general counsel and Niklas Hartmann as an investment analyst.

Among the fund’s financings last year was a whole loan for private investor WASP Investments, for the acquisition of Gaywood House in Westminster, central London. The period freehold building is to be converted from offices to flats. RDM Capital advised on the financing.

Tyndaris also said that it realised three investments at the end of 2015, totalling €90 million of capital repaid at returns in excess of target. Its three initial deals were all German mezzanine loans: €64 million of mezzanine secured on a German office portfolio; a €15 million loan for 1,600 multifamily homes near Berlin; and a €15 million investment secured on a mainly retail portfolio.

Coffee said the latest hires: “Provide us with a broad array of experience that has already benefited the velocity at which we assess opportunities and deploy capital. The business’s ability to source, execute and realise attractive investments in the face of increased liquidity from traditional lending institutions demonstrates that alternative lenders and debt funds have a permanent role to play in the European CRE financing market.”

Other debt fund managers, both in senior and junior lending, have said that they had a busy final quarter in 2015, partly because a number of large banks and insurance companies had already satisfied their appetite to lend, leaving more opportunities.