Helaba refinances Valad’s Polish fund with €133m loan

Helaba has provided a €133 million loan to Valad Europe to refinance its Valad Polish Retail Fund (VPRF).

The loan is secured against six Polish shopping centres held within the closed-end fund, which also contains two hypermarkets and totals around 250,000 square metres.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, although it is understood that the loan has a seven-year term and reflects a conservative loan-to-value ratio in the region of 50 percent.

The six shopping centres which secure the facility are:

• Korona Shopping Centre, Wroclaw
• Tulipan Shopping Centre, Lodz
• Ster Shopping Centre, Szczecin
• Rondo Shopping Centre, Bydgoszcz
• Kings Cross Praga Shopping Centre, Warsaw
• Kometa Shopping Centre, Torun

Valad bought the €570 million fund from GE Capital in February 2013, funded from its balance sheet and including co-investment alongside existing investors. The deal was Valad Europe’s first major transaction since it went private in 2011.

“To have refinanced the six shopping centre assets is a great result for our investors in the fund. We are delighted to continue our relationship with Helaba and are pleased that they have confidence, not only in the assets, but also in Valad Europe’s ability to manage them effectively,” said Thierry Leleu, Valad Europe’s head of funds management.

Karol Pilniewicz, Valad Europe’s head of CEE, added: “The refinancing follows the completion of a number of value enhancing asset management initiatives for the assets in the fund. These included several refurbishment projects and the largest retail letting in Poland last year to Auchan and to Schiever Polska, who leased 170,000 square metres of space in assets across the portfolio. Also, at the end of last month, we sold the Krokus Shopping Centre in Kraków, on behalf of the fund.”

Valad Europe manages €4.7 billion of real estate assets and investment capacity across its 24 funds and mandates in Europe. In Central Europe, Valad manages approximately €870 million of assets comprising 730 tenants, occupying 985,000 square metres of space across Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania.