JDP has advised Trei Real Estate GmbH on its obtaining of EUR 51 million in financing for its Polish subsidiaries from pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank, a German specialist lender for commercial real estate finance.
Trei Real Estate GmbH belongs to the Tengelmann group and operates in Poland through Trei Real Estate Poland sp. z o.o. and Trei Residential sp. z o.o. sp.k. According to a Trei press release, "the loan represents a cross-border financing arrangement and breaks down into two tranches of five and ten years, respectively. It is collateralized with 40 supermarkets from the existing portfolio of Trei Poland, the supermarkets being occupied by Biedronka, Poland’s market leader in food retailing. Trei intends to use the borrowed capital to finance its growth trajectory."
According to Matthias Schultz, CFO of Trei Real Estate, “the financing arrangement will raise the gearing ratio of Trei Real Estate to around 39 percent. This implies an increase by nearly ten percentage points over the past year. By the end of 2020, our gearing ratio is supposed to be somewhere between 40 and 45 percent. Our medium-term target is a 50-percent ratio relative to our overall portfolio.”
Pepijn Morshuis, CEO of Trei Real Estate, explained that “the purpose of this financing arrangement is to free up capital that we may then use to fund our development activities in Poland and Germany. We will use some of the funds to develop additional Vendo Parks in Poland, while the rest will be repatriated to Germany toward the development of residential projects. In addition to our existing portfolio, we currently have approximately 960 million euros worth of property developments in the pipeline.”
According to JDP, the firm's advice included, among other things, "support in negotiating a loan agreement and collateral agreements, assistance in a legal due diligence review of forty shopping properties that were the subject of financing collateral agreements, and preparing legal opinions."
The JDP team consisted of Partner Maciej Chrzan, Senior Associate Michal Urbanski, and Associates Daria Gromotka.
