CTP, the CEE’s largest logistics owner-developer, has refinanced part of its Czech portfolio with a €403.5 mln loan arranged by Aareal Bank.
The facility refinances debt secured on two logistics parks spanning 32 properties, at Bor, near the border with Germany and near Brno.
Christof Winkelmann, member of the management board at Aareal Bank, told PropertyEU in an interview that ‘our focus right now is specifically on the logistics segment - an asset class which we currently consider to be very attractive indeed.’
The German real estate bank is also seeking to increase lending to student housing.
Aareal is the largest German lender on hotels - one of the hardest hit sectors by Covid - with €9bn, or about one third of its loan portfolio, currently in this sector.
The CTP facility is for 10 years and has been syndicated post closing to pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank and several German insurance companies.
CTP operates across six countries, owning 6 million m2 of properties. Last year, the private company refinanced its entire €2.5 bn Czech portfolio with a €1.9 bn single facility with three banks - the regional subsidiaries of Erste Group, Société Générale and UniCredit - which replaced 40 separate loans.
Zdenek Raus, Group Treasurer at CTP Czech Republic, said the latest Aareal-arranged loan was part of a strategy to ‘consolidate and diversify our lender base, while improving loan terms and our overall financial stability.’
At the beginning of 2020 the group, controlled by chief executive and shareholder Remon Vos, asked Cushman & Wakefield to advise on potentially selling a strategic, non-controlling stake.
CTP is aiming to be carbon neutral in 12 months’ time and in the last two months it has made a further big shift away from multiple secured financings at property level by issuing green bonds twice, raising €1bn of unsecured capital at very competitive rates.
In his interview with PropertyEU, Winkelmann said that six of Aareal’s top 15 loans in the hotel portfolio had required liquidity injections since March, accounting for 35% of exposure in that sector.
Read more about how Covid has affected the German banks in the December PropertyEU magazine, to be published on 17 December.
