Paul Yandall
Grainger has reported net debt of £1042m and a consolidated LTV of 46%, both figures practically unchanged from the previous period, for the half year to 31 March 2015.
The average interest rate was 5.1% and was achieved with new interest rate swaps made during the period, the breaking of a legacy swap and the drawdown of £26m of low cost government funding. Undrawn facilities and cash amounted to £242m.
Aareal Bank has provided a €120m facility to Torre Rioja Madrid for a portfolio of three office buildings in central Madrid.
Torre Rioja Madrid owns and manages 15 office, residential, parking and hotel buildings in the capital.
Aeriance Investments has filled its 10-person debt team with the appointment of Seb Sims as associate director and Neil Sargent as legal counsel.
Sims joins from RBS where he was a director on its real estate restructuring team responsible for managing a portfolio of £3.5bn of loans. Sargent joins from law firm Eversheds where he specialised in the origination and restructuring of real estate debt.
pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank has provided a €131m loan to AEW Europe to refinance the Tour W office tower in Paris.
The 32-storey partially let tower in La Défense is managed by AEW Europe and owned by a group of French investors. It is currently being renovated.
“Off-the-radar” secondary assets in established markets offered the best opportunity for good returns from real estate debt, according to a report by TH Real Estate.
The UK Commercial Real Estate Debt report also said the UK property finance market was the largest, most transparent, most competitive and, critically, most creditor friendly in Europe.
Canada Life Investments has backed UK REIT Empiric Student Property with a £31.1m 15-year fixed rate facility on eight UK assets.
The new loan has a rate of 3.97% and is fixed up to a loan-to-value ratio of 50%. The eight assets are held as a lending group through an ESP subsidiary, Empiric Investments (Two) Limited.
It was London’s hottest day so far this year on the eve of the Commercial Real Estate Finance Council Europe’s Spring Conference last month, so naturally, the question on everyone’s lips was how long will it last? For the weather, not long at all, with the mercury soon dropping rapidly, but London’s property finance professionals are hoping for better.
More than 230 converged on K&L Gates’ St Paul’s offices for the two-day event, to discuss the state of the market and the threats to its relatively benign climate.
Overall sentiment was positive, with more than 84% believing the market was still moving towards a peak and only 4% believing the top had been reached.
Borrowers felt that things had clearly turned in their favour. Funding was becoming cheaper, with competition fierce among lenders. Banks had recovered their real estate appetite, with insurers and debt funds joining the party.
US investment firm Kennedy Wilson has entered the UK private rented sector (PRS) with the purchase of a non-performing loan of £68.5m on Pioneer Point in Ilford, London.
The debt purchase, made through the LA-based company’s European subsidiary, Kennedy Wilson Europe (KWE), compares with an unpaid principal balance of £149m. The acquisition is being funded by the company’s cash resources and it planned to take 100% ownership later this year before rebranding and relaunching the development.
Investor appetite for debt in Q1 has seen more than half of all loans by value having LTVs greater than 65%, according to Laxfield Capital’s latest UK CRE debt barometer.
The increase compared to 45% of loans for the whole six months to end of March, implying investors had begun 2015 optimistically. The same figure was only 35% for the previous six months.
Significant refinancing of Derwent London’s £1bn loans has helped the company earn a long-term corporate credit ratings boost from Standard & Poors.
Standard & Poors raised Derwent’s long-term corporate credit rating to BBB+ from BBB "to reflect the company's improved financial profile".