US property investor and services firm Kennedy Wilson has announced the acquisition of an Irish loan portfolio with an unpaid principal balance of EUR 361 mln together with its partner, the European Commercial Real Estate Group of Deutsche Bank AG.
US property investor and services firm Kennedy Wilson has announced the acquisition of an Irish loan portfolio with an unpaid principal balance of EUR 361 mln together with its partner, the European Commercial Real Estate Group of Deutsche Bank AG.
The properties are predominantly commercial real estate assets across a mixture of asset classes, with the majority located in Dublin. Consensual workouts are in progress in respect of a majority of the assets.
Mary Ricks, president and CEO of Kennedy Wilson Europe, said the acquisition was ‘a great win’ for the company and its partner and reflected its robust track record and the strength of its local presence in Ireland.
‘We are seeing signs of recovery in the Irish property market,’ Ricks commented. ‘Investor confidence is returning and there is a good macro-economic recovery story in Ireland that is starting to play out.’
Gibson Dunn’s London office as well as Dublin-based William Fry provided legal advice on the acquisition.
The news follows hard on the heels of the company’s announcement in early July that it was teaming up with an unnamed global financial institution to create a EUR 2 bn platform which will invest in performing, sub-performing and non-performing loans secured by commercial and residential real estate in Europe in the UK and Ireland.
Earlier this year, the US company launched a EUR 280 mln joint venture with Fairfax Financial to invest in UK and Irish commercial real estate and debt and led a consortium of institutional partners that acquired a loan portfolio from Bank of Ireland for $1.8 bn (EUR 1.3 bn).
