Amundi has agreed a €900 mln financing package with a club of four banks for its acquisition of Coeur Défense, the largest single asset to trade in Europe this cycle.
The banks underwriting the senior loan are believed to be BNP Paribas, ING, Natixis and Société Générale, according to the latest issue by Europroperty, part of the PropertyEU group. The facility is due to close before the end of this year at the same time as the acquisition.
Amundi is paying Lone Star approximately €1.8 bn for the 177,000 m2 Paris office complex in La Défense. The price is the highest for a single office complex this year, and trumps the €1.1 bn acquisition of the Sony Center in Berlin last month, and the Walkie Talkie building in London (20 Fenchurch Street), which sold to Hong Kong-based LKK Health Products Group in July for €1.4 bn.
Banking sources said that more than one of the banks in the Coeur Défense club initially competed to underwrite the whole deal and then syndicate part of the debt. However, Amundi preferred to spread the risk by assembling a club. It is thought the four banks may still syndicate some of the jumbo loan.
The sale price achieved by Lone Star is some €450 mln higher than the US private equity firm spent to acquire it in 2014 and is €300 mln lower than the €2.1 bn that was paid for the complex by Lehman Brothers at the peak of the last cycle in 2007.
Lone Star’s focus has been on letting vacant space, to tenants including telecoms firm Orange, which took 17,545 m2 on a 12-year lease at the beginning of the year, helping to trigger the sale.
Despite the loan’s large size it is likely to have been at a competitive margin for a sponsor like Amundi, which has been one of Europe’s most active core investors in the last 12-24 months. The debt at 50% loan-to-value will improve the French investor’s cash-on-cash yield on its acquisition.
Closure of the new financing will repay the incumbent lenders, AXA, and Bank of America which securitised part of the loan.
