Blackstone secures €341m to fund Immofinanz logistics purchase

Blackstone has sourced €341 million of finance from two European banks to fund its acquisition of the logistics portfolio of Austria’s Immofinanz, Real Estate Capital can reveal.

The Vienna-based real estate company sold its entire logistics holdings to Blackstone subsidiary Logicor last November for €536 million. The 1 million square metre portfolio comprises 36 properties located across Germany as well as Central and Eastern Europe.

Helaba has provided a €250 million loan to finance the German assets in the package, which comprises 24 logistics warehouses. The facility is understood to reflect a loan-to-value ratio of around 65 percent, priced in the mid-100s basis points over three-month Euribor.

Austria’s Erste Bank has provided a €91 million loan to finance the Central and Eastern European portion of the portfolio, also at around 65 percent LTV. The Erste Bank loan is understood to be priced at more than 300 bps.

Aside from the German properties, the portfolio comprises five warehouses in Hungary, three in Romania, two in Poland and one each in Slovakia and Russia.

The portfolio also contains three developments which are under construction totaling 65,000 square metres in Hamburg, Bucharest and the Romanian city of Ploiesti. Immofinanz will complete the developments. The portfolio also contains some additional development land.

Immofinanz said last November that the sale of the logistics portfolio was part of its strategy to focus on core retail and office property. The firm intends to use the proceeds of the sale to invest in Germany.

Blackstone intends to integrate the Immofinanz properties into its European logistics platform, Logicor. Blackstone launched Logicor in 2011 and doubled the size of its portfolio during 2015 with a series of investments in the sector.

The New York-based private equity firm was a major borrower of commercial real estate finance in 2015, borrowing around €13 billion across fifty financing deals during the year.