REC staff

Lloyds appoints Royal adviser Lloyds Banking Group has hired JP Morgan Cazenove to sell a £1bn portfolio of distressed UK property loans, dubbed Project Royal. It will be a straightfor-ward disposal of loans backed by regional office, retail and industrial assets, rather than the sale of a stake in a fund, like RBS’s Project Isobel […]

Barclays Capital is trying to offload the debt it provided against a Dublin office asset called La Touche House, which is now worth less than the value of the loan.  While the bank does not own the asset, the loan is in breach of its loan-to-value covenant. “The asset isn’t in receivership but is so deeply underwater […]

Cyril Courbage is leaving Deutsche Bank, where he is European head of real estate. A source working on a deal with the bank said the real estate team were surprised by his resignation after 10 years. One of Courbage’s team, Heath Forusz, has also left. Forusz led the sale of bonds in the bank’s recent […]

Manager wins capital for CASA V as well as Austrian and German funds Henderson Global Investors has raised $105m for a follow-on US multi-family housing fund. The manager has also won  more capital for two German and Austrian property funds launched this summer. But it has put back the September closing date for its second Central London […]

Prime CMBS recovery expected as AAA bonds offer investors ‘safe haven’ Worsening global economic news has caused secondary European CMBS spreads to widen, presenting a buying opportunity at the prime end  of the market. This means returns are much more attractive now than they were before the summer. “We have seen hardly any weakness in the prime […]

Confidence in the US CMBS market has deteriorated as a result of a rating debacle. Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, as well as Freddie Mac, were forced to cancel their CMBS deals worth a combined $2.7bn after Standard & Poor’s pulled its preliminary ratings on the transactions – used to sell the bonds to investors. S&P […]

Latest commitments to Longbow’s and Duet’s debt vehicles take total contribution to mezzanine funds by institutions this year to over £1bn Duet Private Equity and Longbow Real Estate Capital have raised a further £300m for their mezzanine debt funds. Duet raised £125m for the European Real Estate Debt fund, almost £100m from institutions, plus £26m via […]

Generally, there is an encouraging convergence of opinion among originators, servicers and investors on what should be done to help the CMBS market  to recover. But debt-driven property investors, who held the reins in the past few years, have not voiced their opinions lately. Perhaps they are just grateful when any debt finance is made […]

REC global commentary Global real estate securities headed south  in June, posting total returns of -2.1% and underperforming equities generally. The  UK was the only leading market to show a positive return, at a modest 0.34%. The UK now leads on a 12-month basis, with 35.1% total returns, ahead of Canada (33.9%) and the US (33.3%). […]

     Real Estate Capital UK commentary UK REITs continued to drift sideways in June and early July, as did the wider stockmarket. Some smaller companies raised capital towards the end  of the period. Food and value retail specialist NewRiver Retail announced a £40m placing at 252p a share to help fund its £68m purchase of four […]