German insurer Allianz aims to boost its French lending portfolio to between EUR 500 and EUR 700 mln in 2013, the company’s new head of real estate financing in France told PropertyEU.
German insurer Allianz aims to boost its French lending portfolio to between EUR 500 and EUR 700 mln in 2013, the company’s new head of real estate financing in France told PropertyEU.
Carole Tran Van Lieu took up the newly created position in September. ‘We are targeting big lot sizes in Europe of between EUR 100-200 mln,’ she said. ´A loan of EUR 50 mln would be the absolute minimum.’
The French unit of the German insurer has already done its first debt financing deal in the French market. Earlier this year it teamed up with Société Générale to refinance an existing loan by providing a new EUR 275 mln facility. The German insurance firm has granted EUR 200 mln of the seven-year loan at a fixed cost of 4% to listed office giant Foncière des Régions. The loan was used to finance nine office buildings let entirely to France Telecom.
Tran Van Lieu has also finalised the recruitment of new members to the real estate financing team. This week the group hired former Société Générale director Bruno Dord as deputy director of real estate financing for the Benelux and added two junior members to the debt team.
Allianz already has a sizeable real estate loan portfolio in Germany. In the past 18 months, the platform has grown to EUR 1 bn. Allianz is targeting a loan portfolio of EUR 5 bn in Europe by 2015.
