pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank (pbb), UniCredit Bank Austria AG and BAWAG P.S.K (Bank für Arbeit und Wirtschaft und Österreichische Postsparkasse AG) have jointly underwritten a 308-million facility to finance an office and logistics portfolio across Central and Eastern Europe.
The portfolio is owned by Accession Fund SICAV, a fund advised by GLL Real Estate Partners. The transaction was closed on March 31, 2011. pbb is acting as agent of this financing transaction. Half of the underwriting of the facility is being provided by UniCredit Bank Austria.
The portfolio consists of 10 landmark office buildings in top locations in the capital cities of Warsaw, Prague, Budapest and Bucharest, as well as a logistics park near Warsaw. It comprises more than 200,000 m² of Net Leasable Area (NLA) and is well leased to predominantly international tenants. It is recognized as one of the premier real estate portfolios in Central and Eastern Europe.
The Accession Fund was set up in 2004 to invest into prime real estate assets in the countries which acceded to the European Union from 2005 onwards. Its major investors are the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) as well as a number of German and International insurance companies. The fund is advised by GLL Real Estate Partners, a Munich-based fund manager with more than 4 billion under management. GLL Real Estate Partners is predominantly owned by its management and also by the Generali group.
Harin Thaker, Head of Real Estate Finance International at pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank: "We are proud to have worked with our partner banks UniCredit Bank Austria and BAWAG P.S.K. in a club deal to provide our long-term client GLL Real Estate Partners with this pan-CEE financing solution for the Accession Fund portfolio."
Gerd Kremer, Chairman of Accession Fund SICAV commented: "In order to achieve maximum fund performance it was important to receive state of the art cross-border financing for our portfolio. Our partners in this transaction pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank, Unicredit and BWAG P.S.K were instrumental in achieving this goal."
Source: Deutsche Pfandbriefbank AG
