Nuveen Set To Refinance £150M London Loan As Another £270M Office Goes Into Administration
Global investment giant Nuveen is in advanced talks to refinance a £152M loan secured against a 633K SF London office campus, while elsewhere in London, an office bought for £270M by another investor has gone into administration.
A notice to Nuveen investors that own bonds secured against a loan to the Devonshire Square office building said that a short-term extension to the debt had been agreed until August, with a deal for a long-term refinancing in the final stages of being agreed. The loan was set to mature on 20 May.
The notice said the servicer managing the loan had confirmed with the incoming lender that the new debt would be in place before the extension expires.
The 13-building campus, in which WeWork is the largest tenant, was valued at £603M at the end of February, giving the the debt a loan-to-value ratio of 25%. It is 24% vacant, a figure that will rise when the owners take vacant possession of one of the buildings in June this year.
The building is owned by TIAA, the U.S. pension fund that owns Nuveen, and Danish pension fund PFA. WeWork previously owned a 10% equity stake in the building, but was bought out in September last year.
Also in London, partners from FTI Consulting have been appointed administrators and receivers to the special-purpose vehicles that own the 313K SF 5 Churchill Place office building in the Canary Wharf district.
Hong Kong investor Cheung Kei bought the building in 2017 for £270M. The lender to the asset, Lloyds Banking Group, had been looking to sell a £175M loan secured against the building ahead of a maturity last month.
JP Morgan occupies the building on a lease that expires in 2029. It took over the lease when it bought Bear Stearns in 2008. Its main London office is the nearby 500K SF 25 Bank Street.
JLL has been appointed to sell the 527K SF 20 Canada Square in Canary Wharf, which is also owned by Cheung Kei. The building has a guide price of £250M, and it has a £265M loan secured against it. The loan was also provided by Lloyds and matured in October but was not repaid.
