Standard Life Investments (SLI) expects to start euro-lending on real estate by the middle of this year, writes FinanceWatch editor Jane Roberts.
The institutional, senior debt lender favours an evergreen structure for expansion out of its established base in UK property lending. It will be liability-matching capital, but will not have to be invested in loans with long maturities.
Neil Odom-Haslett, Standard Life Investments' head of commercial real estate debt, said: 'We won’t tend to compete with local lenders; it is more likely to be on behalf of international borrower clients.'
The business has invested £800 mln (€924.8 mln) in UK loans since it was established four years ago and undertakes both fixed and floating-rate lending.
Other institutional lenders are taking their first steps into new jurisdictions, including two US insurance companies. From this year, TH Real Estate’s debt team, led by Christian Janssen, has extended its remit for TIAA to include Ireland, the Netherlands and Spain, but is yet to close a deal.
Barings Real Estate Advisers is doing the same for its separate account, MassMutual. JB Gerber has relocated from California to London to focus on high-yield origination and continental transactions. Three large US insurance companies are already investing in several countries: MetLife, PGIM Real Estate Finance (on behalf of US Prudential) and AIG.
In addition, M&G Investors has invested about £2.5 bn of £6.5 bn capital deployed in continental Europe. All have, or will have, support from direct real estate investing teams across Europe.
__________
This news story first appeared in the inaugural edition of PropertyEU FinanceWatch, published in March 2017
