ING syndicates Spanish shopping centre debt

ING Real Estate Finance has syndicated the €125m loan it issued in November last year secured against the prime Madrid shopping centre Islazul, Real Estate Capital can reveal.

Deutsche Postbank, Santander and NN Group have all bought debt issued by ING at a margin thought to be in the region of 260bps.

Desire from banks to gain exposure to the recovering Spanish market is at a high level and the original mandate to finance the purchase of Islazul was also hotly contested.

The 90,000 sq m centre was bought by TIAA Henderson on behalf of National Pension Service of Korea for €230m from Ivanhoe Cambridge and Grupo Lar. ING issued a five-year loan which reflected a loan-to-value of just under 55%.

NN Group is an insurance and asset management group which was wholly owned by ING Group until it sold a 28.6% share in July last year through an IPO, raising €1.54bn. ING is still the asset manager and majority owner of NN Group and last year NN Group granted ING’s fund management business, ING Investment Management, a €400m mandate to invest into European senior real estate debt.

Santander has been one of Spain’s most active domestic banks in the real estate market since the market began recovering around 18 months ago. In January it shored up its balance sheet by raising €7.5bn of capital under the supervision of new chairman Ana Botin.

Deutsche Postbank retreated from the UK market in 2013 when it sold its £1.4bn loan book to GE Capital but has continued to be active on the Continent since.

This is the second successful syndication for ING in quick succession. Last week it completed the syndication of a £365m loan it made to Safra Group for its acquisition of The Gherkin at 30 St Mary’s Axe in the City of London to LLBW, SMTB, SMBC, Shinsei and an unknown German bank. In that deal ING retained a 20% share of the loan.