January 2012 Issue

Opportunity fund manager raising capital to buy large non-performing real estate loan portfolios with £200m-£250m of equity per deal

Draft real estate lending guidelines centred on four best practice pillars – transaction structuring; documentation; due diligence; and intercreditor arrangements – have emerged from CREFC’s European lender committee, chaired by BNP Paribas’s Peter Dento. Based on a single advance, secured, investment loan with multiple properties, some of the key recommendations include that senior debt lenders […]

UK commercial property values will head south and debt will be the big opportunity this year. At the Outlook for UK Property 2012 seminar, held jointly by the Investment Property Forum and the Society of Property Researchers, panelist Neil Parker, market strategist at RBS, forecast a recession in Continental economies, but the UK keeping positive […]

Lending and corporate finance teams will now report to deputy head of portfolio management

Deutsche Bank’s second new CMBS, secured against the Merry Hill regional mall in Dudley, is expected to close at the end of January. The £210m deal, a three-tranche securitisation of a five-year loan to Queensland Investment Corporation, has been marketed in the US as well as Europe. QIC owns 50% of the 1.7m sq ft […]

Harin Thaker left Deutsche Pfandbriefbank this month after almost 20 years with the German mortgage bank. Thaker has worked for the bank since 1992 and is one of the best-known faces in UK property lending. He had been head of international property loan origination for the last six years and has resigned to look for […]

Corestate Group has agreed to inject up to €10m of equity into the recapitalisation of a high-street portfolio comprised of 20 mixed-use properties across 16 German cities, valued at €55m. The bilateral bank financing was provided by one German senior lender and two junior Danish lenders, both of which are now covered by the Danish […]

BoAML report says practicalities of offloading debt are challenging

A Foncière des Régions’ subsidiary has refinanced a further €387m of its securitised debt in Germany with LBBW and Landesbank Berlin. French SIIC Foncière Développement Logements (FDL), which owns Immeo Wohnen, borrower to the €1.4bn Immeo Residential Finance No 2 CMBS, has secured a new 9.5-year facility at an average rate of 4%, secured against […]

F&C REIT’s new open-ended income fund has grown to £53m of assets. F&C UK Property Fund was launched in June 2010 to take advantage of opportunities to buy in prevailing market conditions, often off-market and sometimes from sellers under pressure from banks. The fund controls inflows to match property it hopes to buy and has […]

Niche US property placement agent Hodes Weill is expanding into Europe and will open a London office this month. The office will be run by Dominic Field, who left Grosvenor Fund Management late last year, and Eric Lemer. The expansion reunites Field and Lemer with David Hodes, Doug Weill and Susan Swanezy, who worked together […]

2012 sees record €13bn of maturities, inflating mountain of problem loans

Grosvenor Fund Management has hired former Morgan Stanley capital raiser Dietrich Heidtmann as managing director of client services in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Heidt mann will be based in Paris, reporting to chief investment officer James Raynor. Grosvenor raised three new pools of capital last year. The largest was Grosvenor Retail Partnership, a […]

Fund has total €588m cash, with 75% committed in four developments AXA Real Estate Investment Managers raised a further €211m of equity at the final close of its third European development fund. After a €230m first close in 2010 followed by a second close early in 2011, the investment manager has raised a total €588m […]

Dutch insurance group ASR has attracted €380m in a first close for a Dutch retail fund seeded with the group’s assets. Advised by CBRE’s European placement team, ASR Real Estate Investment Management has brought in three European institutional investors as co-investors in an oversubscribed capital raise. The fund’s €1.1bn portfolio comprises supermarkets, shops and shopping […]

West End specialist Shaftesbury and the Mercers’ Company have refinanced their Covent Garden portfolio with £120m of long-term debt from Aviva Commercial Finance. The pair’s Longmartin Properties joint venture was set up in 2005 to redevelop 2 acres north of Long Acre. The St Martins Courtyard development of 23 shops, eight restaurants, 102,000 sq ft […]

JLL predicts occupiers will delay decisions in economy set to be“flat at best” in first half of year

Central London investment volumes edged up 10% to £10.9bn in 2011, according to Cushman & Wakefield’s figures. In total, £4.5bn was transacted in 139 deals in the West End and £6.3bn in 108 in the City and Docklands, driven by continued high demand from international investors. Clive Bull, head of central London investment, said: “In […]

The start of a new year is traditionally a time for crystal-balling the year ahead. Real Estate Capital and Barclays got together with four of the UK’s leading CEOs – David Atkins, Chris Grigg, Nick Leslau and Jamie Ritblat – to discuss what they think the big issues will be in 2012. From what they […]

Analysis To kick off the new year, Real Estate Capital and Barclays Real Estate hosted a round table with some of UK property’s leading investors. The discussion ranged across asset pricing, development risk, residential build-to-let, finance and buying debt. The verdict? There are opportunities out there but the panel remain cautious and recovery will be […]

PricewaterhouseCoopers reports for AREF on the ongoing fallout from 2008, writes Jane Roberts

Canadian investor has “significant war chest” ready for UK opportunities, writes Jane Roberts

All sectors except offices ended last year in negative growth territory – and even offices are feeling the squeeze.

Jones Lang LaSalle market commentary

2011 failed to make good on expectations of optimistic first half

Lauren Parr reports on the challenges of restructuring Guy Hands’ German multifamily monolith

Restructuring deals and loan sales on the rise as banks drop “extend and pretend”, says Lauren Parr

Working party of 10-12 to be led by Christian Lambie and Charles Roberts