February 2011 Issue

Now is a good time to consider what 2011 holds for global property markets. We at DTZ predict that real estate market fundamentals will be driven by the exact path of the two-speed economic recovery. In contrast to most Asian and central and eastern European markets, slow eurozone GDP growth is expected to produce only […]

  REC global commentary Growth slowed in January in all global securities markets, with Macquarie’s global property universe returning -0.4%. European property shares have struggled to keep up with general equity markets (see three-month EPRA returns chart) The chart above shows that European property companies’ weighting in the EPRA Global Index peaked at the end […]

Real Estate Capital UK commentary UK all-property company relative returns were just positive in January, at 0.4%. However, over the past 12 months, returns remain poor, at -8.4%. The total return for property shares over the year to the end of January was 8.75%, compared to an 18.7% return for the UK equity market. There was […]

UK market overview The Jones Lang LaSalle Balanced Fund Index started 2011 in a similar fashion to the end of last year, with a modest gain of just 0.22%, compared to 0.33% in December, writes Julian Schiller. Average secondary market pricing for balanced funds improved from -1.00% in December 2010 to -0.21%. Taking into account […]

Recent evidence suggests banks in the UK are already offloading property, reports Jane Roberts

European direct investment volumes in 2010 rebounded to €102bn, up 40% on 2009, according to Jones Lang LaSalle. CB Richard Ellis puts the final figure slightly higher, at €110bn in 2010, up from €73bn in 2009. DTZ’s overall figures are close but slightly lower and show a bigger, 53% jump, from €62bn in 2009 to […]

Private equity investor Corestate Capital has raised another €40m of equity from one investor for its German commercial fund. The fund buys office and retail assets with value-added potential and gears relatively highly, at a 60-65% loan-to-value ratio, and targets 12-15% returns. Corestate said the equity adds around €120m of extra investment capacity, taking firepower to […]

Recent investments in China, the Philippines and Australia, plus a big chunk of UK retail, mean APG’s client ABP is on target to up its property exposure by around €2bn, reports Lauren Parr

An improved offer will be required for managers to win back investors that have lost faith in funds

ULI report respondents see more opportunities ahead to buy secondary assets, writes Lauren Parr

Investment rose in 2010 as equity buyers sought core assets. Is this the future? asks Jane Roberts

A CMBS recovery is widely expected this year; the question is, in what form? Lauren Parr reports

Many people would like the capital markets to re-open for real estate, but the question is: in what form? In the US, the CMBS market has started to come back, leading to hopes that Europe will follow. Banks including Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, UBS and Credit Suisse are said to have teams working on potential […]

The German government has submitted a revised restructuring plan for WestLB to the European Commission, which will make a decision by the summer. The plan proposes to cut WestLB’s total assets and risk-weighted assets by around one third, to between €80bn and €90bn by 2015. It also proposes to split the bank into four businesses, […]

Note holder blocks plan to sell building and waive LTV covenant breach

Royal Bank of Scotland has provided a five-year, £50m revolving credit facility for UK retail REIT Metric Property Investments, secured against specific assets. “We will refinance assets that we own, enabling us to draw down on the facility to finance future acquisitions,” said Sue Ford, Metric’s finance director. Conditions of the loan include that the […]

Goldman reshuffles REPIA team Jim Garman will become European head of Goldman Sachs’ Real Estate Principal Investment Area, in a reshuffle following Richard Powers’ retirement as co-head of REPIA in the Americas at the end of March. Edward Siskind, global head of REPIA, will move to the US, where he will continue to manage the […]

Deutsche Postbank hopes to increase its new lending in the UK this year to €500m. Last year the German retail bank lent €300m here. Bruce Matthews, co-manager of the 40-strong London branch, said: “Last year a lot of investments went to cash buyers and a lot of what we were shown in the debt market […]

Borrower resumes restructuring talks after improved note buy-back fails

London estates use unsecured notes as an alternative to bank finance

RBS has cut the size of a loan portfolio it is selling by just under half, to £1.6bn. Advised by Lazard, the bank had originally considered selling up to £3bn of loans, but reduced this figure after receiving initial expressions of interest. A source close to a potential bidder said: “[RBS] may have tried to […]

Delancey has stepped into a south London development site called Oakmayne Plaza by acquiring the debt on the site from Royal Bank of Scotland. The bank originally lent the money to Oakmayne Properties five years ago. Delancey will work with Oakmayne on the one-acre plot adjacent to Elephant and Castle, which has consent for 390,000 […]

Investors in AEW Europe’s French high-street retail fund have agreed to extend the vehicle’s life and to raise additional capital. AEW was due to start liquidating Fondis 1 this year,  but the four shareholders in the fund have instead decided to extend the vehicle’s life by more than five years. The fund has a portfolio […]

The founders of new loan advisory business Solutus Advisors have defended the group’s abilities and impartiality as a special servicer, after criticism from Fitch Ratings. Cheyne Capital Management appointed Solutus, set up late last year but not rated as a special servicer, to replace Hatfield Philips as special servicer on DECO 8 loans Rowan, MPH […]

US insurer strikes deals to help refinance two London office buildings and an industrial portfolio

One of the largest European CMBS loans to mature last year has breached its standstill agreement and now faces likely enforcement. It is doubtful whether the €613m Opera Finance (Uni-Invest) loan, secured on 207 mainly Dutch properties, will be paid down to a level that can be refinanced by the notes’ maturity date of 15 […]

Special Situations Fund will turn around London and South East assets

German residential company GSW Immobilien has secured €875m in a number of separate bilateral loans to refinance an €890m securitised loan. The original debt was securitised in the Fleet St 3 and Windemere IX CMBS deals and matured in August 2011. The new long-term debt facilities came from six lenders, including: Deutsche Pfandbrief-bank, which provided the […]

Duet Private Equity’s European Real Estate Debt Fund has completed a €14.5m mezzanine financing deal secured by a portfolio of eight hotels in Germany owned by Blackstone. The hotels are held in the Blackstone Real Estate Partners (BREP) International Fund II and BREP Fund V and were previously financed by Citibank. They include the five-star […]

Goldman Sachs’ Whitehall has saved Fleet Street Finance 1 from the jaws of enforcement after repaying the £101.3m Queens Moat Houses loan on the very date of maturity, 23 February. Servicer Capita had lined up KPMG to evaluate enforcement options. The leverage on the debt didn’t make it very tough to refinance, but one observer […]

Tesco’s £685m, fourth CMBS issue backed by income from its own property reflects better pricing and a wider range of investors than its predecessors. Tesco Property Finance 4 attracted more than 120 investors, from large UK insurance companies and pension funds to smaller fund managers. The oversubscribed deal was priced at 140 basis points over […]

Blackstone’s Special Situations Fund ll nears €1bn mark and plans sub-fund to target Europe, while Pramerica approaches $500m final close

The $1.15bn merger will add third-party fund management strength to CBREi in Europe and Asia

Beefed up origination team will ready bailed-out bank for sale or flotation

Eurohypo has syndicated £142.5m of debt to Axa in three separate deals this year. The latest involves the transfer of £50m of the £230m, five-year debt facility Eurohypo jointly supplied with Deutsche Bank for Schroders’ WELPUT fund in January. Before that it sold 25% of the debt it lent for Evans Randall’s £242.5m purchase of […]