BAML provides €143m pan-European financing for M7

Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML) has provided a €143.3 million financing to European investor and asset manager M7 Real Estate.

BAML has provided the senior debt facility to finance a portfolio of 53 properties located across Finland, Germany and the Netherlands. The three-year loan reflects a circa 65 percent loan-to-value ratio.

The portfolio was acquired by M7 European Real Estate Investment Partners IV in October. The investments were the first made for the fund, which reached first close in September 2016, having received capital commitments of more than €175 million, giving a total investment capacity in excess of €400 million.

M7 announced at the time of the acquisition that it had acquired around €213 million of assets. The Finnish portfolio was bought from OP Property Management and comprises three retail, two office and seven industrial assets totalling 63,935 square metres. The Dutch portfolio comprises six urban logistics properties. The properties provide 21,813 square metres in locations across the Randstad region and have a blended occupancy rate of 94 percent.

The firm also bought 35 office, logistics and retail assets, for €151 million. The assets, which are located across Finland, Germany and the Netherlands, were bought in four further separate transactions at a combined net initial yield of 9.2 percent.

M7 has banked with BAML on four occasions since December 2014, borrowing a total of €425 million across the deals.

“Our teams have developed a very close working relationship which enables us to efficiently close complex financings involving multiple assets across a number of jurisdictions,” said Hugh Fraser, global head of capital markets at M7.

“Having put our first tranche of investor capital to work in October, this agreement with BAML allows us to continue to use EREIP IV’s capital to the full advantage of our investors. We will now look to deploy this capital into attractive investment opportunities via our pan-European platform,” added Richard Croft, M7’s chief executive.

The loan will be serviced by Situs, M7 said.