June 2011 Issue

Controlling class noteholders in the distressed Opera Finance (Uni-Invest) B.V. CMBS may appoint Fortress Investment Group as the new operating adviser at a meeting scheduled for 27 July. The move would complicate an already difficult attempt by Eurohypo, special servicer to the Dutch office CMBS, to recover value for noteholders, who face heavy losses. Eurohypo […]

The market needs to address some key issues to encourage investors back to CMBS, a product that was unprepared for the scale of the downturn and that has been slow to address its shortcomings. As a servicer, I am concerned about the lack of servicer scrutiny. Scrutiny would have led to more servicers being replaced […]

Real Estate Capital UK commentary After a bullish April, the UK REIT sector’s share prices flat-lined in May, while the wider stock market  drifted down by 1.9%. Land Securities reported better-than-expected results, with an IPD-busting 8.4% rise for its portfolio value in the year to the end of March. British Land’s 6.9% value growth also beat  […]

UK market overview The Jones Lang LaSalle Balanced Fund Index rose 0.51% last month, compared with 0.34% in April, writes Julian Schiller. The index is up 1.83% since the start of the year and 4% up over the past 12 months. Taking into account secondary market pricing, the 12-month return falls to just 2.64%. Balanced […]

Pricing for 2011 contracts has picked up in the past month following the 22nd consecutive month of capital growth

Orion Capital Managers’ founders believe their experience of raising funds and sourcing deals in even the toughest times will allow them to remain vigorously independent, reports Jane Roberts

Past problems make many banks keen to limit mezzanine providers’ rights, reports Lauren Parr Senior lenders are taking a firm line on the rights that mezzanine providers are entitled to within the capital stack, if they will allow a junior tranche to sit behind them at all. Some French and German banks are thought to […]

Savills finds 20 new lenders in UK since last year, but “many are embryonic”. Lauren Parr reports

Investors are finding bank lending terms more demanding in a range of areas, writes Lauren Parr

Goldman Sachs’ plan to float Spring portfolio provides hope for the country’s stalled REIT sector

IPD index shows green buildings underperforming, but lack of data is a flaw, writes Jane Roberts

Investors back £302m DECO 2011-CSPK after last-minute structure changes, writes Jane Roberts The first publicly-marketed European commercial mortgage-backed securities transaction for almost four years has been scrutinised from all sides. What would demand be like? How would it price? How different is the structure from ‘old’ CMBS deals? And would Deutsche Bank, the £302.3m deal’s […]

Deutsche Bank has almost certainly pulled it off: it is just days away from closing the first new CMBS transaction to be sold to investors for almost four years. After much anticipation, there was enough investor demand for the debt, secured on Blackstone’s Chiswick Park, though European buyers weren’t beating down the door. Deutsche is […]

The slew of regulation affecting private equity fund managers will have significant outcomes for their businesses, concluded a panel at the PERE conference. Ken MacNaughton, chief financial officer for Benson Elliot, said: “The successful long-term managers will be the ones that prepare now. It is not a compliance matter; it is a business issue.” MacNaughton […]

Property firms will have to post collateral to take out interest rate swaps in less than two years’ time, following a European Commission vote last month. Peter Cosmetatos, finance policy director at the British Property Federation, told the conference that an attempt to win real estate exemption from European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) had failed. […]

Private equity conference hears flow of loans offloaded by lenders is up “from trickle to a stream”

Irish banks are stepping up disposals of non-core assets. Allied Irish Banks is under-stood to be talking to Merrill Lynch about selling €260m of continental property loans. It agreed to sell around $1bn of US loans to Blackstone and Wells Fargo earlier this month. Blackstone took about half of the portfolio at a discount in  […]

Eurohypo has taken over the disposal process of between €150m and €200m of insolvent Italian properties. It is seeking a buyer for the assets it inherited from insolvent owner Magiste Real Estate, via an auction. These include 6,000m2 of offices at 4 Via Silvio Pellico in Milan, which has redevelopment potential and could fetch €40m; and […]

Clydesdale Bank has lent £27.55m to property firms on two regional deals. Clydesdale Corporate & Structured Finance provided £23.75m to replace half of a loan Lloyds lent Development Securities and Patron Capital Partners last April to buy the Manchester Evening News Arena, valued at £73m. The loan expires in 2013. The bank also supplied Helical […]

Situs teams up with Helios to service German bank’s €3bn Nordics book The Situs Group is expanding further into Europe by taking on the servicing of HSH Nordbank’s €3bn Nordic legacy loan book. The US-owned debt adviser and loan servicer has set up a joint venture with US debt adviser Helios AMC to manage the […]

Pace Investments has attracted senior debt development finance for its speculative office scheme in central Cambridge. Private bank Investec’s structured property finance arm provided the loan for the 53,000 sq ft Botanic House, which Pace hopes to let for over £30/sq ft. Nearby, Microsoft has agreed to pay £29.50/sq ft for 77,800 sq ft on […]

Sanderson fills GPE finance post Nick Sanderson will join Great Portland Estates next month as finance director, replacing Timon Drakesmith, who has joined Hammerson. Sanderson was previously head of real estate corporate finance at Deloitte. Varandas moves to Aberdeen Aberdeen Asset Management has appointed Roberto Varandas to the new role of head of business development. […]

“It’s amazing how few of you are prepared to venture outside London…“It is a brilliant time to  be lending. Everybody says: ‘London will power on. It will remain the financial capital of the world.’ “One French bank told me that it regarded London as a proxy for world GDP. Good on the French!” William Newsom, speaking […]

BayernLB has provided £70m of refinancing for the £617m Henderson UK Shopping Centre fund. The loan was used to repay existing loan facilities and is secured on the St James Shopping Centre in Edinburgh. Mike Worley, head of the bank’s London branch, said the deal demonstrated the bank’s commitment to the UK regional market.  

Tristan Capital Partners has secured a €200m revolving credit facility from RBS International to finance acquisitions. It has reached exclusivity on five deals worth €250m across the office, retail, residential and logistics sectors in the UK, Germany, Austria and Central Europe, for its Curzon Capital Partners III fund. The core-plus fund, which was launched in […]

Pension fund buys £60m retail trust stake in large secondary market deal USS has made one of the largest secondary trades in a UK unlisted fund. The UK pension fund has invested around £60m in Standard Life’s Shopping Centre Trust, acquiring the units at what is thought to be a small discount to net asset […]

Far Eastern banks Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ have taken part in a syndicate that provided £560m of debt for British Land. Arranged by Royal Bank of Scotland, the five-year, revolving unsecured corporate debt facility replaces a £790m loan set to expire in August. It was […]

More quoted property companies are seeking to extend their debt maturities by putting long-term financing in place. Big Yellow plans to refinance part of its £275m of bank loans into £100m of 12-14 year debt, while rolling over the remainder into new five-year debt. Chief executive Jimmy Gibson and chief financial officer John Trotman outlined […]

Central London Fund 2 has invested £90m raised at first close last year

LGIM poaches two experienced originators for senior lending campaign

Wells Fargo has awarded broker Eastdil Secured the mandate to sell two German multi-family housing loans with a €123m face value. The US bank is seeking offers for a €80.1m performing loan that was lent to Forum Partners in 2006, and a €42.9m non- performing loan that is due to mature next year. The larger […]

Five out of DG Hyp’s seven strong London team have now relocated, with finance head Andrew Goodbody and associate Jan Bleyder also on the verge of moving to new positions. The London office officially closes this week. Relationship manager Katie Wright, who was the last to join the office, from Helaba, has joined Lloyds on […]

MSREF may sell German asset management arm to a private equity firm

Deutsche Bank manages to sell first publicly marketed CMBS in nearly four years, but investors force concessions on controversial X notes