Nordea finances Bayside’s €107m Finnish deal

Bayside Capital has secured financing from Nordea for its €107m joint venture purchase of a Finnish retail portfolio.

Bayside, a credit affiliate of HIG Capital, has drawn down the funds after recently completing the acquisition in partnership with Finnish private equity group Trevian Asset Management. The vendor was AXA Real Estate.

Trevian has an established relationship with Nordea, which financed its acquisitions of Finnish retail and care homes last year. The Finnish bank is one of the most active lenders on property in Scandinavia and northern Europe.

The portfolio Bayside and Trevian have acquired has a total lettable area of around 128,500 sq m and is dominated by 122 grocery stores spread across 90 municipalities in residential areas of Western Finland. It is currently 95% let.

Bayside’s model is to team up with best-in-class asset managers to invest in both equity and debt typically in European geographies where banking dislocation allows it to secure attractive pricing, and a higher chance of finding and delivering on opportunities.

Recently it acquired a Dutch portfolio of six offices and one shopping centre from IVG for €70m, financed with a €45m, 65% LTV loan from ING. The Netherlands is a market in which Bayside has invested repeatedly over the course of the past 12 months, through its joint venture with M7 Real Estate for industrial property. It also picked up non-performing loan positions in Italy and Romania this year.

Ahmed Hamdani, managing director at HIG in London said the latest transaction was the company’s 13th real estate investment in Europe since 2013.

“HIG continues to add to its sizeable portfolio and to see significant opportunities in the sector, especially in our target market of small/midcap opportunities with a meaningful value-added component. This is our first investment in Finland and we are very constructive on future opportunities in the country.”