ING lends €63m to Qataris for Credit Suisse's Milan HQ

Dutch financial group ING has granted a €63 mln loan secured against the Credit Suisse headquarters at Via Santa Margherita 3 in Milan.

The five-year credit facility, with a loan to value of nearly 60%, was provided to the asset's owner, SMG Real Estate, an Italian limited liability company indirectly owned by Qatari sovereign wealth fund QIA.

QIA and asset manager Hines Italia bought the asset last summer from US developer-investor Tishman Speyer for over €110 mln in cash.

The 11,000 m2 asset is multi-let to banks Credit Suisse and BPVN. Currently fully leased, the property was completely refurbished by Tishman Speyer in 2006 and generates rents of around €6 mln a year.

The property is managed locally by Hines Italia SGR and Coima Srl.

ING also acted as a sole hedging provider.

ITALIAN PORTFOLIO
The Qataris have become major investors in Italian real estate over the past months. Last week, QIA unveiled it has taken full control of the €2 bn Porta Nuova mixed-use development site in central Milan in a deal worth over €1.2 bn.

Porta Nuova is a mixed-use development in downtown Milan combining offices, retail and residential. It provides a total of 290,000 m2 across three sections, Varesine, Isola and Garibaldi, located near Milan's central station. The office element is 80% let at present.

QIA took an initial 40% stake in Porta Nuova in May 2013. It was the SWF's first major real estate operation in Italy and since then the Middle Eastern investor has significantly expanded its holdings in the country.

Last October it teamed up with US investor-developer Hines to take over a portfolio of 90 Deutsche Bank branches for €134 mln. Hines and the Middle Eastern sovereign wealth fund emerged ahead of a joint venture of Kennedy Wilson and Prelios as local asset manager as well as a partnership of Colony Capital and asset manager IdeaFimit in the bid to acquire the assets, which are being leased back by the German lender under a 12-year rental agreement.

They also launched a €300 mln fund, known as Italian Banking Fund (IBF), to invest in Italian banking assets. The vehicle, which is managed by Hines Italia Sgr and has QIA as its only unitholder, is believed to have acquired Deutsche Bank's Italian HQ at Milan’s Bicocca area, which currently generates an annual rental income of €8 mln.