ING provides €420m underwrite for AEW Europe fund

AEW Europe has completed a €420 million refinancing of the French assets in its €2 billion pan-European Logistis fund with ING Real Estate Finance.

ING has underwritten the new facility after a tender process last year. AEW will use the funding to continue to expand the logistics fund.

The secured portfolio comprises 55 logistics assets, totaling 1.6 million sq metres, in and around Paris, Marseilles, Lille, Le Havre, Lyon and Toulouse. It includes the eight-asset Corridor portfolio which AEW bought last December for about €200 million from Munich-based GLL Real Estate Partners.

The financing is ING’s second for AEW of a large French portfolio. Last year the Dutch bank jointly led a €670 million underwrite for the fund manager’s purchase of a portfolio of 10 mainly French shopping centres, with Natixis.

Some €300 million was syndicated to Bank of China (€200million), China Construction Bank and NN Group.

In line with its usual strategy, ING is likely to syndicate part of the Logistis fund loan and will act as facility agent.

AEW Europe formed Logistis in 2012 after merging three funds to create a ‘superfund’. The vehicle has invested in Italy, Spain, Benelux, Germany and Central & Eastern Europe as well has France and its investors include APG and PGGM, the Dutch pension fund managers.

Luc Bordereau, AEW’s European managing director for fund operations, said: “We are pleased to have come to this agreement with ING as sole underwriter for the refinancing, following a selective tender process which generated strong interest from banks. ING demonstrated its underwriting and execution capability during the process, which led us to working with the team as our preferred partner on the transaction.”

Clifford Chance and Monassier were advisors to the Fund, while De Pardieu Brocas Maffei and Wargny Katz acted for ING.