ING syndicates €525m of debt across French and Spanish loans

ING Real Estate Finance has completed the syndication of around €525 million of debt across two large European loans which it underwrote earlier this year, Real Estate Capital can reveal.

Spanish, German and French banks, as well as a Chinese bank, have taken participations in loans secured by a French logistics portfolio and an office tower in Madrid’s central business district.

The Dutch bank has sold down the majority of the €420 million facility it wrote in March to refinance the French assets within AEW Europe’s €2 billion pan-European Logistis fund. The loan was written for seven years, with two one-year extension options, and is understood to have been conservatively leveraged and competitively priced.

Half of the loan was taken by two German banks. Berlin Hyp and Bayern LB each took a 25 percent stake. China Construction Bank (CCB) also took a slice of the loan, in keeping with the participation of Asian banks in several of ING’s European loan syndications during the last year. CCB and a French bank took around 25 percent of the loan between them, with ING retaining the other quarter.

The facility is secured by 55 logistics assets totalling 1.6 million square metres. The properties are located in and around Paris, Marseilles, Lille, Le Havre, Lyon and Toulouse. The assets include the eight-strong Corridor portfolio which AEW bought last December for about €200 million from Munich-based GLL Real Estate Partners.

Meanwhile, ING has also completed the syndication of the €280 million loan which it wrote in February to finance the purchase of one of Madrid’s most prominent office buildings for Philippines-based investor Andrew Tan. ING fully underwrote a seven-year loan to finance the Torre Espacio at a starting LTV of below 50 percent, priced around 160 bps.

Three Spanish banks bought into the deal, with La Caixa taking more than €70 million and Bankia and Bankinter each taking around €38 million. In addition, two German banks participated.  MuenchenerHyp took €26 million and Deutsche Postbank took around €38 million. ING retained around €70 million of the deal.

La Caixa is understood to have joined the syndicate soon after the loan was originated in February, with the other four banks joining in April.

Tan purchased the 60,142 square metre Torre Espacio, which translates as Space Tower, last November. The tower is located in the Cuatro Torres – ‘four towers’ – area of Madrid’s central business district.

The 56-storey tower was bought from Spain’s Grupo Villar Mir for €558 million, through the purchase of the company Torre Espacio Castellana SAV, the entity to which ING’s loan was written.

ING has emerged as a leading player in the European real estate syndication market in recent years. Data compiled by Dealogic showed that ING was the most active book-runner in the European real estate syndication market during 2015. The bank topped the league table for deals excluding REIT financings, with €3.521 billion over 21 deals.