Three German lenders and the UK's Nationwide Building Society have agreed to provide a debt facility for up to £290 mln (EUR 328 mln) to the joint venture which is redeveloping the St David's shopping centre in Cardiff, the capital of Wales.
Three German lenders and the UK's Nationwide Building Society have agreed to provide a debt facility for up to £290 mln (EUR 328 mln) to the joint venture which is redeveloping the St David's shopping centre in Cardiff, the capital of Wales.
The facility is being provided to the St David's Limited Partnership by way of term finance from joint mandated arrangers DekaBank, Eurohypo, Nationwide Building Society and WestImmo.
WestImmo is acting as facility agent, with DekaBank and Nationwide Building Society acting as co-monitoring agents.
St David's Limited Partnership is a 50:50 joint venture between Capital Shopping Centres, Liberty International's UK regional shopping centres division, and Land Securities.
The joint venture partners will each be able to receive up to 50% of the proceeds which can be drawn down over the first 12 months subject to progress on construction and letting of the scheme. The facility is for a five-year term.
Ian Durant, finance director of Liberty International, commented: 'This is Capital Shopping Centres' largest current development and one of the UK's largest city centre retail schemes attracting new retailers to Wales. Despite significant challenges in credit markets the transaction demonstrates that debt finance is available for high-quality UK regional shopping centre assets.'
St David’s 2 will deliver 89,880 m2 of new retail space, in addition to the existing 39,670 m2 St David's shopping centre, which attracts more than 27 million shoppers each year.
The new 129,135m2 centre will deliver more than 100 new shops, 25 cafes and restaurants and luxury apartments in the heart of Cardiff. The scheme is also delivering the largest John Lewis department store outside of London's West End.
Eurohypo, Westimmo and DekaBank rank among the most active banks in Germany at present, according to the latest PropertyEU ranking of Top 30 Financiers. To read more about Europe's leading financiers, click on the link below to subscribe to PropertyEU Magazine.
