Legal & General (“L&G”) announces that it has completed a c. €27.6m (£24.5m) bi-lateral loan to refinance three offices and a leisure centre owned by Citygrove. This latest deal continues to prove the platform’s ability to provide competitively priced debt at the shorter end of the market.
Arranged over a seven year term, the loan is secured against three office buildings, let to St James’ Place on long term leases, in Cirencester and Newbury, and a David Lloyd Centre also let long term, based in Luton. The loan replaces existing bank finance from Close Brothers Property Finance.
Arranged by Legal & General’s Private Credit business, part of LGIM Real Assets, the drawdown of the loan is immediate.
LGIM Real Assets’ property lending business has now lent over c. €2.3bn (£2bn) across 21 deals. The transaction follows closely behind its first acquisition finance deal for Olympia London – backing Deutsche Finance International and Yoo Capital’s c. €334m (£296m) purchase of the iconic exhibition centre asset.
Ashley Goldblatt, Head of CLL at LGIM Real Assets, said: “This transaction further demonstrates our ability to continue to move into areas that the market might not traditionally expect to see us in – in this case a loan term more normally associated with banks. We are able to invest at the short, medium and long edge of the curve, as well as across alternative asset classes, demonstrating the breadth of our lending capabilities.”
Toby Baines, Chairman at Citygrove, commented: “We found LGIM Real Assets very straight forward, reliable and quick to deal with. We concluded the transaction in a very acceptable timescale and enjoyed working with them. We hope this is one of many that we will do with them in the future.”
