Deutsche Pfandbrief provides loan facility to EPISO

pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank, the core bank of Germany’s HRE Group, has provided a GBP94.25mln loan facility to European Property Investors Special Opportunities fund, which is co-advised by Tristan Capital and AEW Europe.

The facility will be used to refinance the acquisition of the Sapphire Properties portfolio on 17 June, which comprises three shopping centres in Burnley, Cardiff and Harlow in the UK. The centres have a combined total of 955,000 square feet of retail space. The portfolio is managed by Addington Capital.

The loan made sense because Deutsche Pfandbriefbank has a track record of working with the sponsors, Harin Thaker, head of real estate finance international at Deutsche Pfandbriefbank in London, told PropertyEU.

‘In addition, the two centres in Harlow and Burnley are the only local destination centres in these towns, so it’s the kind of thing we’d look at. We will consider prime and non-prime assets,’ he told PropertyEU.

In addition to the UK, France and Germany are very important markets, as are Nordic countries, due to their strong economies, Thaker added. The lender is also active in Poland and ‘very selectively’ in Spain, where it targets prime assets in good locations, he said.

Deutsche Pfandbriefbank is back on the road to recovery after a challenging couple of years, following HRE’s bailout by the German government in October 2008. The bank posted a pre-tax profit of EUR52mln in the first quarter of the year, marking its third profitable quarter in a row, against a backdrop of restructuring that is largely completed. The turnaround represents a marked difference from the same period last year, where the bank posted a loss of EUR177 mln.

In a further sign that Deutsche Pfandbriefbank’s fortunes are improving, it generated EUR2.2bn in new business in the first quarter, of which EUR1.6bn was generated by real estate finance. (Figures for the second quarter will be published on 11 August.) This year, the bank is hoping to do around EUR8bn in new business, Thaker told PropertyEU, with ‘at least half’ of this total coming from real estate finance.

The bank has already financed several deals this year. On Thursday, it announced that it had provided a SEK422mln (EUR46mln) facility to Ness Risan & Partners, with Wilfast Förvaltning as asset manager, for their share acquisition of Nordic Distribution Centre Jönköping. The company owns a modern 95,400 square metre distribution center which serves as the Scandinavian hub for Elgiganten/Elkjop, subsidiaries of Dixons Retail Plc. Thaker said that Ness Risan & Partners is ‘a long standing client of the bank and we are very pleased to continue working with them in the Nordics’.

In April, the lender provided a EUR308 mln loan facility to GLL’s Accession Fund to refinance an office and logistics portfolio across Central and Eastern Europe. The loan took the form of a club deal, with half of the underwriting of the facility being provided by UniCredit Bank Austria, with Deutsche Pfandbriefbank and the Bank für Arbeit und Wirtschaft und Österreichische Postsparkasse providing the rest.

Also, in March, Deutsche Pfandbriefbank provided Berlin-based residential real estate company GSW Immobilien with a long-term loan of EUR200mln, as part of a refinancing for a securitized credit which GSW has now replaced with a number of individual loan agreements. The loan financed a portfolio of 118 residential buildings - or 7,100 apartments - in Berlin.















































































































































































































































pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank, the core bank of Germany’s HRE Group, has provided a £94.25 mln (EUR104.9mln) loan facility to European Property Investors Special Opportunities fund, which is co-advised by Tristan Capital and AEW Europe.

The facility will be used to refinance the acquisition of the Sapphire Properties portfolio on 17 June, which comprises three shopping centres in Burnley, Cardiff and Harlow in the UK. The centres have a combined total of around 100,000 m² of retail space. The portfolio is managed by Addington Capital.

Deutsche Pfandbriefbank is back on the road to recovery after a challenging couple of years, following HRE’s bailout by the German government in October 2008. The bank posted a pre-tax profit of EUR52 mln in the first quarter of the year, marking its third profitable quarter in a row, against a backdrop of restructuring that is largely completed. The turnaround represents a marked difference from the same period last year, where the bank posted a loss of EUR177 mln.

In a further sign that Deutsche Pfandbriefbank’s fortunes are improving, it generated EUR2.2 bn in new business in the first quarter, of which EUR1.6bn was generated by real estate finance. (Figures for the second quarter will be published on 11 August.) This year, the bank is hoping to do around EUR8 bn in new business, doubling last year’s total, Dr. Bernhard Scholz, member of the management board responsible for real estate finance and public sector finance, told PropertyEU earlier this year.

The bank has also financed some sizeable deals this year, including a EUR308 mln loan facility in April to GLL’s Accession Fund to refinance an office and logistics portfolio across Central and Eastern Europe. The loan took the form of a club deal, with half of the underwriting of the facility being provided by UniCredit Bank Austria, with Deutsche Pfandbriefbank and the Bank für Arbeit und Wirtschaft und Österreichische Postsparkasse providing the rest.

Also, in March, Deutsche Pfandbriefbank provided Berlin-based residential real estate company GSW Immobilien with a long-term loan of EUR200 mln, as part of a refinancing for a securitized credit which GSW has now replaced with a number of individual loan agreements. The loan financed a portfolio of 118 residential buildings - or 7,100 apartments - in Berlin.