Partners Group and pbb finance German RE assets

The Swiss-headquartered investment manager and German lender teamed up to provide a €125 million debt package for the real estate portfolio.

Alpha Real Capital has topped up a €91 million senior facility from pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank with €34 million of mezzanine from private equity firm Partners Group to refinance a German portfolio.

The five-year loan on the Alpha German Property Income Trust refinances an existing facility. The senior component of the new facility is floating and the mezzanine is fixed.

Paolo Bortolotti, vice president at the Swiss-based Partners Group, said the transaction was a good opportunity “to work together with another leading European real estate lender to provide financing to a portfolio of properties with strong cash flows operated by an experienced sponsor”.

He said that Partners Group’s mezzanine solution provided the flexibility “to meet complex requirements and was structured at attractive terms for our clients”.

Gerhard Meitinger, head of real estate finance Germany for pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank, said the structuring was an example of pbb’s ability to arrange “complex financing alongside experienced borrowers and financing counterparties, providing senior leveraged participation in combination with higher leveraged mezzanine structures”.

pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank has already led this month on a total of €810 million of loans to German developer Aurelis and Israeli-owned ADO Properties.

Alpha Real Capital, headquartered in London, has about £1 billion ($1.54 billion; €1.38 billion) of assets under management across a number of real estate and debt funds. The fund manager’s Alpha German Property Income Trust portfolio consists of 29 retail and logistics properties across Germany.

Alpha said the refinancing would be used to re-gear short term leases, reduce vacancy levels and carry out property-specific value-add initiatives.