December 2013 Issue

Starwood Property Trust has appointed former RBS banker Blair Lewis to head its European loan servicing business Hatfield Philips. Lewis, who was previously European head of restructuring at Royal Bank of Scotland, will start in his new role on 6 January. Starwood acquired Hatfield Philips last April as part of its acquisition of US parent […]

Sales through stores predominantly selling food account for almost 50% of UK retail transactions. Supermarkets, however, make up just 7.5% of the retail in IPD’s database. But they possess different and favourable supply and demand characteristics compared to non-food retail, resulting in their outperformance in recent years. However, in future we expect wider variation in […]

UK market overview Secondary market pricing continued to improve in November, driven by year-end allocation demands, writes Ashley Marks. This has coincided with strong returns for most balanced funds. The Jones Lang LaSalle Balanced Fund Index increased by 1.1% in November and 2.5% over the past 12 months. Including secondary market pricing, this rose to […]

Buoyed by the increased activity of asset management agencies such as NAMA and Sareb, the European commercial real estate (CRE) loan and real estate owned (REO) sales markets saw €23.1bn in closed transactions in the year to mid December, without including over €3.5bn of Spanish servicing platform closed transactions, writes Federico Montero, partner at Cushman […]

Two new players joined the ranks of listed property specialists this year, writes Virginia Blackburn

UK is stepping stone into Europe for acquisitive US healthcare specialists, reports Doug Morrison

US firm aims to build £1bn portfolio as overseas investors push into UK, writes Doug Morr

In July, BlackRock became the latest manager to set up an institutional long-lease fund when it launched the UK Long Lease Property Fund with £250m of initial capital from six pension fund clients. BlackRock had invested in long-leased assets, such as supermarkets and offices, for 10 years through its £2.4bn UK balanced fund, but this […]

AXA Real Estate has a different approach to investing in and managing alternative real estate assets, in a strategy that has evolved over 10 years. Its first specialist fund in this area was Alternative Property Income Venture (APIV),  managed by Dan Bowden, a closed-ended, £500m vehicle launched in 2007, which is fully invested and has […]

M&G says investors will stick with long-lease funds even as bond yields rise, writes Jane Roberts

Institutions turn to alternative assets that outperform traditional property, writes Doug Morrison

Loan sale trend will be boosted by more vendors and deals in new territories, reports Lauren Parr

Laxfield Capital report reveals growing liquidity for smaller, regional deals, writes Alex Catalano

Institutions turn to senior debt to supplement their fixed-income portfolios, reports Jane Robert

Since the latest (mid year) De Montfort report came out earlier this month, one talking point has been how relatively small an impact alternative – or what the report calls ‘other non-bank’ – lenders have had on the property lending market so far. The survey says only £2.7bn of £193bn of outstanding debt is from […]

IGC-Longbow is on course to complete investment of its inaugural £102m listed senior debt fund by early 2014. The fund, which was launched last January, has closed five senior loans totalling just under £37m in the past few weeks, taking it from 50% to 85% invested. With a couple of further deals in the pipeline, […]

Aareal Bank is refinancing loans it made to one of its stable of hotel borrowers, funding a new, €350m, five-year facility secured against eight Park Plaza hotels in London and the Netherlands. The German bank refinanced three of PPHE Hotel Group’s four London hotels: Park Plaza Riverbank; Park Plaza Victoria; and Park Plaza Sherlock Holmes. […]

More London securitisation plan is ditched as estate sells to St Martins

Alberta Investment Management Corporation has bought Exchange Quay, a 433,637 sq ft, multi-let office complex in Salford Quays. The acquisition by the Canadian pension fund is further evidence of increasing investor interest in properties with asset management angles outside central London. With $70bn under management AIMCo is one of Canada’s largest institutional fund managers, and […]

US apartments operator set to expand after Opal Property acquisition

IPD has launched a service for modelling private real estate risk, in conjunction with US owner MSCI, called the Barra Private Real Estate Model (PRE2). Roveen Bhansali, MSCI’s head of risk management analytics, said: “Until now it has been impossible to measure and compare the risks of global real estate with other asset classes. “This […]

Gadsden takes Orchard reins Chris Bartram, chairman and co-founder of Orchard Street Investment Management, is handing over daily operation of the business to partner Philip Gadsden. From January, Gadsden, who joined Orchard Street seven months ago to work on strategy and new business, will be managing partner. Bartram will continue as chairman and focus exclusively […]

Private equity spends €3.5bn ahead of anticipated distressed asset sales

Orion Capital Partners has closed its fourth European opportunity fund, raising €1.3bn of equity. The company said the fund was fully subscribed from a range of investors “from around the world”, many of them repeat investors from previous funds. Like Orion Fund III, which raised €1.1bn in 2009 and is fully invested, Orion European Real […]

A group of five UK banks has refinanced £266m of debt for John Whittaker’s Peel Land and Property. Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking, RBS and Santander provided a non-recourse corporate facility secured against a segregated pool of assets. One of the lenders described it as an “unorthodox portfolio;  a mishmash of dozens of development […]

Ian Womack, Aviva Investors’ global head of property, has taken over management of all of Aviva’s real estate debt business. For the first time, Aviva Commercial Finance, which makes long-term, fixed-rate loans to match Aviva’s annuity book, will become part of Aviva Investors. Kevin Sale, who was head of Aviva Commercial Finance, has retired from […]

German lender appoints Lazard to advise on the disposal of former Eurohypo Spanish division

Landesbank Baden-Wurttemberg (LBBW) has written more than £100m of senior loans in three London deals in the past two months. The largest is for Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers’ acquisition, for a client, of Nexus Place at 25 Farringdon Street, EC4. LBBW provided a bilateral loan for Cornerstone’s £130m acquisition of the City building from Tishman […]

Competition squeezes margins in bidding to fund Ashby Capital asset

Wider debt availability is helping to close the sales of a string of regional property portfolios before the end of the year. Barclays is thought to be financing Harwood Real Estate’s acquisition of a £120m portfolio of 41 assets sold by the Co-op Group, while Deutsche Pfandbriefbank has lent to US investor Harbert, which bought […]

Credit Agricole CIB has a new head of real estate and hotels finance in the UK. Anne Toledano has been appointed managing director, real estate and hotels group, succeeding Neal Ledger, who moved to Hong Kong to head s corresponding Asian teams. Toledano previously spent nine years running a property finance team for the bank […]

Russia’s LetterOne and LaSalle team up with specialist lender to finance two schemes to convert Belgravia and Victoria buildings into luxury flats

Royal Bank of Scotland Corporate & institutional Banking has issued loans worth more than £100m in four deals by its Yorkshire and Scotland teams this month. RBS provided a £30m rolling, corporate facility to South Yorkshire’s Strata Homes, for work in progress and several sites identified for acquisition over the next 12-24 months. RBS would […]

The joint CEOs of newly converted REIT Hansteen are having to widen their search and bide their time in their quest to invest a £500m war chest in industrial property bargains, writes Jane Roberts

Contracts for 2009 have continued to rally, but modest capital falls are expected in the 2011-2014 period CBRE-GFI market commentary For the third consecutive month, the derivatives market has priced in gains at the front end of the curve but negative sentiment after 2010, writes Michel Heller. The November IPD UK Monthly Index revealed that […]