REC staff

AREA Property Partners has sold a 35%, non-controlling stake in the private equity real estate business to nabInvest, the direct asset management group of National Australia Bank. The deal gives AREA balance-sheet strength to raise more funds and pursue acquisitions. It will also bring more international coverage, given that NAB’s institutional distribution capabilities are based […]

Jones Lang LaSalle’s latest 2011 lending survey says greater liquidity in the UK lending market has failed to materialise. City investment director Andrew Hawkins said: “A year ago we predicted greater liquidity than we are now experiencing and the outlook is challenging.” The survey’s findings were: Refinancing will continue to account for 50% of banks’  […]

Mark Graham has resigned from his post as UBS’s head of securitised products for the Europe, Middle East and Africa debt capital markets team. He joined the Swiss bank last May from Deutsche Bank. Graham’s appointment  was seen as a sign that UBS anticipated a revival in the securitisation sector in Europe. Three months later it […]

Duet Private Equity raised only half its £100m target in this month’s initial public offering for Duet Real Estate Finance. The new £50m company, which listed on the main stock exchange on 14 March, is a feeder fund to Duet’s European Real Estate Debt Fund. It is the only UK-listed company focused on investing in […]

Portfolio being sold to private equity firm shrinks from €400m to €150m Royal Bank of Scotland is selling a smaller portfolio of Spanish loans to Perella Weinberg than it originally came to the market with. Perella Weinberg has agreed to buy a batch of loans with a face value of €150m. It was thought that […]

Grosvenor Fund Management is thought to have gained commitments from two Dutch pension funds for a pan-European shopping centre vehicle. The core-plus fund is one of five that Grosvenor’s fund management division hopes to launch this year. GFM is reported to have agreed terms to buy six shopping centres from Unibail-Rodamco, four in Sweden and two […]

An option for Deutsche Bank’s potential securitisation of Chiswick Park could be to parcel it up as part of a US CMBS deal. Deutsche Bank has agreed to provide a £300m loan for Blackstone’s purchase of the West London business park. The bank is exploring options to split up and sell on the debt, although […]

Court ruling protects borrowers during debt restructuring of Paris tower

Goldman Sachs’ Whitehall is understood to have injected substantial new equity into a refinancing of its £101.3m Queens Moat Houses loan through one of its funds. Clydesdale Bank stepped in to provide senior debt at a loan- to-value ratio of around 30% of the portfolio’s £230m value. The debt, which was originally provided by Goldman […]

Eurohypo and Credit Agricole are among at least three banks in talks to raise a likely £700m-plus of debt against developer’s flagship UK scheme