HSH Nordbank Finances Property Portfolio for Delta Lloyds Fund in the Netherlands
Financing Volume of Euro 65 Million Eight Office and Four Retail Properties
Hamburg/Kiel, May 29, 2008 - HSH Nordbank will make a Euro 65 million loan available toward the financing of a real estate portfolio by Delta Lloyd Dutch Property Fund C. V. in Amsterdam. The property fund is a member company of Delta Lloyd Group that is about to be launched for institutional investors and other qualified investors in the form of a non-listed Dutch REIT. The fund will seek to set up, before the end of 2010, a diversified portfolio of residential, office and retail properties with an investment volume of Euro 500 million.
The currently financed property portfolio consists of eight office buildings and four retail properties. The office properties are located in Hilversum, Utrecht, Arnhem, Delft, Zeist, Breda and The Hague; the retail properties are situated in Ridderkerk, Rijswijk, Arnhem, and Zevenaar. The total market value of the portfolio to be acquired equals just short of Euro 160 million, which would translate into an initial loan-to-value ratio (LTV) of slightly over 40 percent.
“From our point of view, the transaction represents a rather safe and sound case of real estate financing,” elaborates Peter Axmann, Global Head of Real Estate at HSH Nordbank AG. “The portfolio has a well-diversified tenant structure. This means that the rent default risk is widely spread. Moreover, this is a rather conservatively geared transaction where the investor contributes more than half of the required funds in the form of equity.”
The market environment in the Netherlands has clearly improved again in the recent past, particularly for office real estate. The office market is undergoing a recovery phase following several difficult years, and the vacancy rates continued to decline in 2007. At 10.7 percent on average, they undercut last year’s figure by about 1.8 percent. The floor space take-up has considerably increased, whereas the floor space supply dropped.
Meanwhile, HSH Nordbank has established itself in the Netherlands as the biggest foreign real estate underwriter. In 2007 as in 2006, the Nordbank concluded new business in excess of one billion Euros. It involved nearly 40 transactions in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg.
HSH Nordbank AG is a strong regional bank in Northern Europe with total assets of € 205 billion. Some 4,800 of the bank’s employees provide corporate and high net-worth clients around the globe with premium bank products and services. In its core region of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein, it is the market leader in the corporate customer segment. HSH Nordbank is an acknowledged partner of the capital markets and international sector specialist. Its main focus is on transportation and real estate. In fact, HSH Nordbank is the world’s largest provider of ship finance and covers the entire value chain in the transportation segment. In the area of real estate, HSH Nordbank is one of the strongest banks in Germany, acting as a provider of services relating to all aspects of real estate.
For more information please visit our website at www.hsh-nordbank.com.
The information contained in this press release does not constitute an offer for the sale of any type of Hamburg Commercial Bank AG securities. Securities of Hamburg Commercial Bank AG may not be sold in the United States without registration pursuant to US securities legislation, unless such a sale takes place on the basis of relevant exceptional provisions.
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