HSH Nordbank backs Tristan jv with €91m

HSH Nordbank is financing Tristan Capital’s and FREO Group’s €110m joint purchase of the Barthonia Forum in Cologne with a €91m five-year loan.

It is the German bank’s second significant recent facility to Tristan. It also backed Tristan’s joint purchase with Signature Capital of a Karstadt department store in Munich with a €130m five-year loan in late April.

Tristan used its European Property Investors Special Opportunities 3 (EPISO 3) fund to make the Barthonia purchase with its joint venture partner, the Luxembourg-headquartered private equity firm FREO.

The acqusition in Cologne is the fourth purchase by the fund this month. It has also bought an office park in Poland with a €71m five-year loan from pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank, a €122m portfolio of four Italian shopping centres and a €73m mixed-use building in Oslo this May.

Barthonia is a mixed-use estate in Cologne’s Ehrenfeld district comprised of 12 retail and residential buildings including a shopping centre anchored by a Kaufland supermarket.

Ali Otmar, managing director of Tristan Capital, said: “The investment gives EPISO 3 a mixture of ongoing cashflow as well as value-add asset management opportunities through repositioning in a number of properties on the site to offer better accommodation for retail, residential and office tenants.”