DB to issue Blackstone property bond - report

Deutsche Bank will be behind the first true UK property securitisation since the onset of the credit crunch, according to the Financial Times.

Property securitisations - bonds backed by cash flows from property loans - were a vital funding tool for developers before the financial crisis, when investor demand for the complex securities dried up and property prices plunged, leaving deals backed by assets worth less than the deal's total repayments.

The new bonds are backed by loans to Chiswick Park in west London, one of Britain's largest office parks, and the deal is expected to come to the market in the first half of the year, the paper said. Blackstone agreed to buy the office park for about £480 mln (EUR 570 mln) at the beginning of the year and that deal, for which Deutsche is providing £360 mln of financing, is expected to complete next week. The securitisation itself will total about £300 mln.