April 2014 Issue

MIPIM’s reputation in some quarters as a champagne-fuelled jolly in the sunshine had subsided in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, for obvious reasons. After a record 29,318 attendance in 2008, 2009 was the year delegate numbers fell off a cliff and the event remained a more sober affair in the following two years. […]

Blackstone is seeking more exposure to the recovering Italian property market by making a bid for a listed fund. Ocean Realty, a Blackstone subsidiary, has launched a €151.7m takeover offer for the entire shares of mutual fund Atlantic 1. The fund owns a mixed portfolio of properties including Carrefour supermarkets and the headquarters of oil […]

Schlüter leaves Hatfield Philips Mathias Schlüter, Hatfield Philips International’s managing director, is leaving the firm. He headed the business from 2011 until this January, when Blair Lewis took over as chief executive officer. The firm said Wilhelm Hammel, existing director of strategic and business development in Germany, will join the firm’s senior management team, while […]

UK market overview Average secondary market pricing across all UK sectors continued to improve in February, moving closer towards net asset value by a further 0.21%, to an average 0.76% discount to NAV, writes Ashley Marks. The improved pricing was driven by both the balanced and office sectors, which remained constrained due to demand outstripping […]

Liquidity in European debt finance markets continues to increase. One sign is the rising number of large loan underwritings by single banks, often followed by syndication to a small group of lenders/investors. A year ago £100m was a large underwriting for one bank; now it is more like £300m. For example, Morgan Stanley underwrote a […]

After making a splash by nabbing Spanish bad bank Sareb’s first big portfolio sale, the distressed asset investor is pursuing deals in a number of “dislocated” banking markets, writes Lauren Parr

Need for providers to have high credit ratings is making swaps more costly, writes Alex Catalano

CMBS given higher risk weighting under proposed rules for insurance firms, reports Lauren Parr

It’s a safe bet that responses so far to the seven recommendations in last October’s A vision for real estate finance in the UK report will have been mixed. The draft report was issued by the ad-hoc Real Estate Finance Group (REFG), which was sponsored by the IPF and chaired by Grosvenor’s finance director Nick […]

Asset and loan sales likely ahead of stress test for European lenders’ books, reports Alex Catalano

CREFC seminar reports appetite for CMBS but a lack of suitable collateral, writes Jane Roberts

MIPIM delegates said wave of equity and cheaper debt is fuelling recovery, reports Jane Roberts

Evidence that liquidity is returning to the debt markets is piling up. One indicator, admittedly not very scientific, is that Real Estate Capital has been running two pages of new lending deals instead of one for the past few months. Another is that only nine months ago £100m was a large ticket for a single […]

US investor lines up two Dutch deals plus NPL buys in Italy and Romania

Ellen Brunsberg, head of GE Capital Real Estate’s UK business, has been promoted to CEO for Europe. Brunsberg takes over from retiring European CEO Lennart Sten and will continue in her role as head of GE’s UK property senior lending business, which she took over a year ago. The company plans to expand its senior lending […]

Blackstone Real Estate Debt Strategies has now invested 40% of its second, $3.5bn debt vehicle. Up to half of BREDS II’s equity can be invested in Europe and the European BREDS team, led by Joe Pedlow, started investing at the beginning of last year. The fund’s niche investment focus is complex, higher-yielding transactions. One of […]

French firm seeks €350m for second debt venture, this time with Foru

Société Générale has returned to real estate lending outside France and has a £500m-plus target for the UK this year. The French bank quit new lending in the UK and continental Europe in late 2011. It subsequently sold off almost €3bn of legacy property loans as it sought to meet European Central Bank Core Tier […]

US bank Wells Fargo is moving Scott Bottles, a senior member of its real estate banking group, to London to be head of credit. He is expected to join the Covent Garden-based UK real estate lending team this spring. The move will enable new loan decisions to be made more quickly, giving Mike Acratapulo’s origination […]

Non-performing loans package attracts 23 domestic and foreign bidders

The second ‘IREBS’ German debt study has attracted a raft of new sponsors. INREV, the Commercial Real Estate Finance Council Europe and the German Property Federation (ZIA) are supporting the 2014 survey. They join the debut report’s sponsors, who include Real Capital Analytics, DTZ, JLL and Bulwiengesa. The survey, expected to be published in October, […]

Manager seeks high single digit and double digit returns for £1.3bn funds

Lloyds Banking Group is beefing up its global real estate lending arm in anticipation of distributing more senior debt this year. Head of global corporate real estate John Feeney has hired Andrea Pittaluga as a relationship director with a remit to focus on private equity and institutional fund manager customers. Pittaluga, previously a real estate […]

Internos Global Investors is stepping up sales of assets from 2006-2007 vintage funds, taking advantage of improving pricing on the back of the wider availability of debt. The investment manager is selling all the assets in German Retail Property Fund, one of seven closed-ended funds and mandates it took over managing when it acquired GPT […]

CBRE Global Investors has launched the closed-ended European Shopping Centre Fund II, which will buy dominant retail centres on the Continent. The eight-year fund will buy core-plus investments with opportunities to enhance income, continuing the investment strategy of the CBRE European Shopping Centre Fund, which has agreed it final investments. Florencio Beccar, the fund’s manager […]

Three bank facilities and £488m rights issue back UK shopping spree

The UK fund industry has welcomed the government’s intention to consult on stamp duty land tax seeding relief, announced in the 19 March Budget. The consultation will cover the SDLT treatment of seeding property authorised investment trusts (PAIFs) and the wider SDLT treatment of tax-transparent funds. At present, the 4% tax is payable when a […]

Lloyds Bank has sold a portfolio of loans made to Irish developer Michael O’Flynn, with a face value of about €100m, to Ellis Short’s private equity firm Kildare Partners. The loans are backed by properties in Cork. NAMA is selling another portfolio of loans made to O’Flynn in a process called Project Tower, managed by […]

Natixis has completed a four- lender syndicate for a €666m portfolio of 12 French shopping centres, after underwriting the whole €406.5m funding last year. The assets are managed by CBRE Global Investors on behalf of the CBRE Retail Property Fund France Belgium. Jerome Lacombe, RPFFB’s chief finance officer, said: “It was important to have a […]

Helaba, pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank and Allianz provide €300m at highly competitive margin

Pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank increased its real estate lending business by 43% last year, as management continues the preparations for the government- owned bank’s sale in 2015. New property lending rose from €4.9bn to €7bn, with €5.3bn of that figure comprising new commitments and €1.7bn extensions of existing loans. The number of loans made also increased, […]

Goldman Sachs, Aareal and BNP Paribas are among bidders to fund office campus scheme, as banks look to take on big-ticket loans to sell on later

Property lenders should carry out regular, external open-market valuations at whole portfolio asset level that can be submitted with other data for analysis to manage risk, IPD and CBRE have recommended. They are seeking to sell a commercial, best-practice model to lenders. Their proposal comes as the Real Estate Finance Group debates the challenge of […]