This Week's London Deal Sheet
A weekly compilation of Greater London and beyond's biggest leases, sales, financing deals, construction updates and personnel moves. Have news you’d like to submit? Email tim.clark@bisnow.com.
Brookfield has refinanced a £1.23B loan on the 1M SF, 40-storey 100 Bishopsgate office building. Goldman Sachs has provided a £280M mezzanine loan, with a consortium providing £950M of senior debt. The loan represents 75% loan-to-value for the skyscraper, valuing it at almost £1.7B.
The consortium consists of Standard Chartered Bank, Bank of China, SMBC, ING, OCBC and FAB Mezzanine, according to CoStar. The five-year loan is priced at a blended rate of SONIA plus 232 basis points.
The building previously had an £850M loan secured against it, put in place in 2019, a financing that valued the building at £1.5B.
FINANCE
Greystar Europe Investment Management has announced the final close of Greystar Equity Partners Europe I, which has raised €1.55B. The fund received equity commitments from a diverse group of global institutional investors, including both existing and new relationships to Greystar, the company said, and will focus on the acquisition and select development of purpose-designed, thoughtfully amenitised rental apartments, student housing and young professional accommodation in Europe’s major cities.
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An app that has been dubbed ‘Slack for construction’ has raised $1.7M from a seed funding round. Symterra promised to eliminate construction uncertainty by acting as a communications platform for the construction supply chain.
The seed round was 50% oversubscribed with global investors led by Samaipata, with participation from Nemetschek, Pi Labs and Accel.
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Housing association Silva Homes has raised £28.5M from the government’s Affordable Homes Guarantee Scheme. The loan will be used to fund the construction of 130 homes and was administered by ARA Venn.
The loan was financed through the sale of retained bonds by Saltaire Finance, a subsidiary of ARA Venn, which will mature in 2052 at a total cost of approximately 3.5%.
DEVELOPMENT
UBS Asset Management and Reef Group have formed a joint venture to develop one of Europe’s largest life sciences campuses near Stevenage.
The 1.4M SF of lab and office facilities will be built at the Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst, which will support 5,000 jobs. The two developers are providing up to £900M in investment to build the new campus.
The development will be built alongside GSK’s existing global R&D centre and Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst.
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Aviva Investors has partnered with Packaged Living to acquire and develop 195 homes in Telford, Shropshire. The 195 units forward purchased by the partnership consist of 148 semi-detached, nine terraced and 38 detached homes, and together will provide over 179K SF of family housing.
The properties form part of the wider Charlton School development in Telford, set on the former site of a secondary school and owned by UK housebuilder Vistry Partnerships.
SALES
Harworth Group has sold off two land parcels at its Waverley and Thoresby Vale developments to Barratt and David Wilson Homes, for a total consideration of £39M.
At Waverley in South Yorkshire, Harworth has completed a £29M land sale that will see the delivery of approximately 450 homes, of which more than 30% will be affordable. At Thoresby Vale in Nottinghamshire, Harworth has exchanged on the sale of serviced land capable of delivering 174 homes, for £10M.
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Home REIT has allocated £84.9M from a £263M equity issue to acquire 183 properties across England.
In addition to this, Home REIT acquired 33 additional properties located in England for an aggregate purchase price of £7.4M, which included acquisition costs, shortly prior to the Subsequent Placing.
PEOPLE
Global developer and real estate investor Trammell Crow has appointed Richard Fell as head of European Logistics Capital Markets.
Fell joins Trammell Crow from Clarion Partners Europe, where he spent the past three years as vice president for investments. In this role, he led pan-European origination, negotiation and financing of existing leased, build-to-suit and speculative development logistics investment opportunities.
In his new role, Fell is responsible for identifying, structuring and securing debt and equity capital to support the joint-venture activity of Trammell Crow’s logistics development business across Europe.
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Immobel Capital Partners, the London-based investment management firm, has appointed Melinda Knatchbull as chief financial and operating officer.
In her new role, Knactchbull will be responsible for the financial, operational and risk aspects of Immobel Capital Partners' activities. She has more than 25 years of experience in the fund management industry, with the last 20 focused on real estate. Knatchbull has spent about 20 years working alongside Duncan Owen, CEO of Immobel Capital Partners.
