Hines secures €450m loan for Milan's Porta Nuova fund

Hines Italia Sgr, the investment management platform controlled by Houston-based developer Hines and Manfredi Catella, has secured a €450 mln, five-year loan to refinance its Porta Nuova Garibaldi development fund.

The bank consortium comprised BNP Paribas as agent, as well as UniCredit, Banca IMI, Société Générale and Bank of America Merrill Lynch and BNP Paribas as joint mandated lead arrangers.

Following the deal, the debt of the Porta Nuova Garibaldi fund has been reduced to 55% in line with its core investment profile, the manager said in a statement.

'The Porta Nuova project proves to be able to attract capital and financing from some of the world's most prestigious banks and investors; it is clear proof of Italy's capacity to develop innovative products and projects that can compete internationally,' commented Manfredi Catella, CEO of Hines Italia SGR.

In total, Hines Italia Sgr received over €3 bn of debt offers, meaning the €450 mln auction was seven times oversubscribed.

A total of 20 major banking institutions worldwide tabled a bid, offering what Hines Italia described as 'some of the most competitive terms and conditions on the Italian market over the last five years'.

‘The financing costs for this development are now about half of what they used to be up to six months ago,’ Catella told PropertyEU. ‘We will pick a pool of banks even though we have had several offers from single banks willing to grant the entire financing.’

Porta Nuova is a mixed-use development in downtown Milan combining offices, retail and residential. It provides a total of 254,000 m2 of space across three sections, Varesine, Isola and Garibaldi, located near Milan's central station.

The Garibaldi section is home to the 30-storey Garibaldi Tower, officially the tallest building in Italy, designed by Cesar Pelli. The skyscraper provides over 60,000 m2 and is 100% leased to Unicredit Bank.

Qatar Holding, a unit of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, has the relative majority in the project after having acquired a 40% stake last year in a deal valuing the entire site at €2 bn.