German bank in £190m Brockton refinance

Brockton Capital has refinanced its UK retail parks portfolio with a new loan of around £190m, Real Estate Capital can reveal.

It is understood that Aareal Bank has provided a five year facility that is held against a portfolio of eight parks. The parks are thought to be valued at around £300m, meaning a loan-to-value of around 63%.

The deal will see existing arrangements across different assets in the portfolio paid back, including facilities with Santander and GE Capital, which inherited its position following its purchase of Deutsche Postbank’s £1.4bn UK commercial property loan book in November last year. Aareal was the existing lender on two assets in the portfolio.

The new financing includes a tranche for capital expenditure that will be used to carry out asset management across the portfolio as well as allow the sponsor to make new acquisitions.

The portfolio is a joint venture between Brockton Capital’s second £500m fund, which was raised in 2010, and its asset manager Pradera.

The parks are: Cardiff Gate Retail Park, Cardiff; Ravenside Retail Park, Birmingham; Riverside Retail Park and Pinners Brow Retail Park, both in Warrington; Foundry Retail Park, Rotherham; Springhill Retail Park, Bangor; Gloucester Retail Park, Gloucester and Central Retail Park, Bolton.

Aareal, which is led in north-west Europe by Paul Stone, has been highly active across Europe this year. Its deals have included: a £300m refinancing of the Hilton London Metropole and the Hilton Birmingham Metropole for Tonstate Group in the UK in July; a €228m loan to Aerium alongside pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank to refinance a portfolio of 23 mainly Parisian properties provided in the same month; and in February it provided a €72m four-year facility for Helical Bar for its Europa Cenralna retail park in Gliwice, Poland.

All parties declined to comment.