Allianz Real Estate has provided its first debt financing for a pan-European real estate portfolio.
The German insurer has taken a €365m portion of a €630m senior loan arranged by Aareal Bank for Northstar Realty Finance Corp.
The loan is backed by 11 offices sold by SEB Asset Management to US REIT Northstar for €1.1bn late last year.
Allianz Real Estate head of finance, Roland Fuchs, said investing in a “high-volume, pan-European facility” is in line with the firm’s growth and diversification strategy.
“Our cooperation with Aareal Bank has been successful, in particular with regard to structuring and documentation requirements specific to the insurance industry,” Fuchs said.
Aareal Bank had arranged and underwritten an initial €530m, seven-year senior facility to Northstar. The bank today said the loan had been increased to €630m, taking the facility’s loan-to-value ratio to 57%.
The transaction is one of the largest syndicated loans agreed between banks and institutional investors in Europe and one of the largest financings provided by a German insurer.
Christian Schmid, Aareal Bank managing director of business and syndication management, said: “This syndication is another milestone in Aareal Bank’s cooperation with leading insurance companies such as Allianz.
“At the same time, it reflects our aim to win over and establish institutional investors as syndicate partners, alongside banks.”
Collaboration between insurance companies and traditional bank lenders is evolving, as reported earlier this year.
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