Chinese Giant Prepares Equity Injection To Refinance London Tower

Insurance company China Life has received a key internal approval that will allow it to put up new equity to refinance a London office tower.

Investors that bought bonds secured against a loan to the 324K SF Aldgate Tower on the eastern edge of the City were told last week that China Life had been granted approval to inject new equity into the building’s capital structure to facilitate a refinancing alongside joint venture partner Brookfield. 

In July, China Life and Brookfield were granted a five-month extension on the £192M loan secured against the building that was scheduled to mature that month. 

The loans against the building total £192M, £150M of which was securitised and £42M of which was syndicated. A notice to bondholders in July said that Brookfield and China Life had received a term sheet from new lenders agreeing to refinance the debt at a loan-to-value ratio of 50%.

The building was valued at £260M in July last year, implying that a new loan would total about £130M. 

The building is 14.5% vacant and produces rental income of £15.1M. The largest tenant is AECOM, which pays a third of that rent, with a lease expiring in 2031. The weighted average lease length of the building is 6.6 years.

There is interest rate hedging in place, which means the interest cover ratio of the loan is 1.57x.

Brookfield and China Life bought the building for £346M in 2016. It was completed in 2015 and developed by Aldgate Tower Investments, backed by a £200M loan from Starwood Capital. 

In 2021, the pair refinanced a loan used to buy the property with £192M of new debt from Morgan Stanley.