The Royal Bank of Scotland has launched the sale of a 30,000 m2 office portfolio in northern Italy with a guide price of around €100 mln.
The Royal Bank of Scotland has launched the sale of a 30,000 m2 office portfolio in northern Italy with a guide price of around €100 mln.
According to well-informed market sources, the UK lender has hired CBRE to market the buildings formerly owned by Italian entrepreneur Luigi Zunino, the founder and former owner of troubled Milan-based developer Risanamento.
The package includes one building at Corso Vittorio Emanuele, one at Galleria Passerella in the city centre of Milan as well as a couple of smaller asset in Segrate and in Turin.
The portfolio will be marketed among a wide range of investors, with US opportunistic capital including Blackstone, GWM and Cerberus expected to look closely at the assets. Closing of the transaction is planned for the second half of 2015.
Blackstone has been very active in Italy in the recent past. Last week, the US private equity group emerged as the buyer of the headquarters of La Nazione in Florence while PropertyEU understands it is also the buyer of a portfolio of government-let office buildings from Fondi Immobili Pubblici, a close-ended fund managed by Investire Immobiliare Sgr, for about €160 mln.
The disposal of the former Risanamento assets is the latest carried out by RBS, which last week announced the sale of Ulster Bank's Aran portfolio of Irish property loans to Cerberus Capital Management. While the carrying value of the loans is about £1 bn, the gross assets are valued at £4.8 bn and generated a loss of £800 mln, principally impairment provisions, in the year to 31 December 2013. Completion is expected in the first quarter of 2015.
