REC staff

Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing completed the acquisition of the Saturn portfolio of loans from NAMA last week. The portfolio, with a face value of around £220m, is believed to have been bought at a deep discount of 60-70%. MSREI did not disclose terms. MSREI’s EMEA head, Brian Niles, said he was “pleased” to be […]

The future of troubled Dutch property company Uni-Invest will be decided on 17 April, when noteholders who control the company vote on two proposals. Depending on the outcome, either Valad Europe or Patron Capital with TPG will be managing the portfolio of 220 secondary Dutch industrial and office assets which were securitised in the Opera […]

Barcelona outlet village set for expansion after Value Retail arranges refinancing of €91m loan

The Kirsh Group completed the £283m acquisition of City land-mark Tower 42 last week with £145m of 20-year debt from Aviva Commercial Finance. The group’s chairman, Natie Kirsh, said: “Aviva has provided about 50% of the money on a 20-year facility, which supports our long-term investment philosophy as we grow our international property portfolio.” Several […]

Deal brings asset manager’s investment in UK debt in 2011 to €1bn

New £500m funds will offer investors choice of risk-adjusted returns through stretch-senior and mezzanine/preferred equity strategies

Long-term savers around the globe have enjoyed the positive contribution to diversification that income-producing property can bring to multi-asset portfolios. The fact that direct property is relatively illiquid is not a problem for long-term investors and this risk is usually controlled by maintaining a modest 5-10% long-term weighting. In the past 10-15 years, one trend […]

With expected value falls already priced into contracts, trading has been weak, but may pick up if total returns fall below 0%

After a slow start and a lot of frustration in 2008/09, in the past 18 months Catalyst Capital has pulled off a string of deals for its first fund and made plans for a second. Jane Roberts reports

Emerging Trends report suggests new lenders are unlikely to plug funding gap, writes Alex Catalano Europe’s property doyens are expecting a lost year. Emerging Trends Real Estate Europe 2012, the annual pulse-taking conducted by Urban Land Institute and Pricewaterhouse-Coopers, found that financiers, fund managers, occupiers, investors and developers alike think that sitting on their hands […]