pbb provides financing for GIANT transaction – EuropaProperty

pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank has provided Growth Industrial Asset Net-Income Trust (“GIANT”) with investment financing in support of GIANT’s acquisition of 34 logistics and industrial properties in Germany and the Netherlands, as announced on 1 December 2016. Initially, pbb provided a senior loan of €260 million at deal closure. In a second step, the specialist bank for real estate finance placed some €140 million of that loan in December 2016. Berlin Hyp and Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW) have each taken a €70 million participation on their books. A group of pension funds is additionally engaged in the financing, with an equity share plus a mezzanine loan.

The industrial properties acquired by GIANT were previously managed by GARBE Industrial Real Estate GmbH (GARBE). The total rentable space of all 34 properties in the portfolio is around 797,000 sqm, being mostly logistics space, but also 5,000 sqm of retail and 105,000 sqm of light industrial space. GARBE will continue to service the portfolio as an investment manager and asset manager.

Gerhard Meitinger, Head of Real Estate Finance Germany at pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank, said: “With this transaction, pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank, together with its equity providers and partners, has come up with a financing that constitutes one of the largest and most complex loan structures the logistics real estate segment has seen in 2016. We succeeded in bringing together three financiers and the initiator, and finding the right structure for each of them – thereby proving our particular expertise in providing financing for complex portfolio deals involving senior and mezzanine tranches.”