ING refinances Polish shopping centre with €193m loan

ING Real Estate Finance has refinanced the Bonarka City Center shopping mall in Krakow with a €193m loan.

The five-year senior facility has been taken out by Hungarian developer TriGranit Development Corporation. TriGranit completed the 92,500 sq m centre, which is the largest in the city, in 2009.

The loan-to-value on the debt is thought to be between 65% and 70% and margins in Poland for good shopping centres are in the region of 200 bps. The loan will be syndicated by ING’s London-based syndication team.

Włodzimierz Skonieczny, director at ING told Real Estate Capital: “Margins are coming down in Poland, especially for deals in the medium size range of around €40m to €80m where there is the most competition.

“This has been especially notable in the past six to nine months. I believe this is because of the situation in Germany where there is a big difference between the number of opporunitites available and the amount of money there is to be invested and some of that capital has come to Poland.”

There is also interest from major European banks to finance real estate in Poland given its strong demographics and its growth which has outstripped most other parts of Europe since the downturn.

ING is one of the most active internaitonal banks in Poland where it has also backed Hines and Blackstone, including the latter’s industrial investment company Logicor.