Accolade and Helaba Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen have agreed on the refinancing of five parks located in Gorzow Wielkopolski, Szczecin, Czestochowa and Kielce in Poland. The new financing, with an aggregate value of €129 million, provided for a 5-year period, is the first transaction between the parties. For Accolade, the refinancing means reduced costs of bank financing, less administrative burden and improvement of the debt maturity profile, resulting in increased profitability of the portfolio for years to come.
“This is the second large refinancing of our Polish portfolio, after the first one that we closed in September 2020 and extended in September 2021 amid the COVID pandemic. The times and the market have changed so much since that time for different reasons and have been a real challenge to many players. Accolade’s strategy, however, proved to be bullet-proof and we continue in building long-lasting relationships with the major European banking groups. Financing with our new partner – Helaba Bank – placing confidence in our operations, is here yet another positive verification. We are very excited that we secured this deal,” says Tomas Prochazka, CFO of Accolade Group.
“Meanwhile, the market situation, especially increasing interest rates resulting in higher financing costs, has become very demanding for some investors. In face of the general macroeconomic situation, the banks tend to be very selective with respect to real estate segments and client groups that they finance at the moment. – It is the first time we are working with Helaba together and are delighted that they trusted us from the start by providing a significant amount of the new financing. We understand the trust is attributable to the experienced Accolade team taking care of the diversified portfolio of properties and Accolade clients operating in the properties. The new loan is strategically improving the financing structure of our portfolio in Poland and enables us to focus on further growth in the market while continuing our co-operation also with all other major banks operating in Poland,” emphasized Jakub Leszczynski, General Counsel of Accolade in Poland.
With this transaction, Helaba has become one of the two largest financing banks for Accolade in Poland.
“We are very pleased to have closed such a remarkable transaction with Accolade for the five logistics properties in Poland close to year-end. Accolade is one of the major key players in the logistics sector in CEE and meanwhile expanding its operation to Western Europe as well. During the financing process, Accolade proved as a reliable and professional partner and the cooperation with the CEE team of Helaba led by Georg Blaschke was at all times trustful and dedicated to closing the financing in a short period. We hope to continue the started relationship with Accolade in future and help them to expand their business into new markets,” said Martin Erbe, Head of Real Estate Financing for CEE, Benelux and International Clients Germany at Helaba.
Today, Accolade owns 25 modern industrial parks in all parts of Poland, including strategic locations such as the currently refinanced Szczecin or Gorzow Wielkopolski. The success of this business model is ensured by good geographic diversification, like for example along the western border, as well as the optimal mix of tenants’ fields of business: one-third of the group’s portfolio is from the e-commerce sector, another third is logistics and warehousing, and the last third is made up of light production, machinery, automotive, and other processing industry brands. The company is also a front-runner of the ESG trends, being the agent of sustainable local development.
