The Singapore-listed trust disclosed in an exchange filing last Wednesday that the loan, granted by property developer CDL’s unit City Strategic Equity, will help cover a portion of the construction costs for its Berlin Campus, a single-tenant, single-use office development, as reported by The Edge Singapore.
The loan facility carries a per annum interest rate pegged to the Euro Interbank Offered Rate (EURIBOR) plus a margin of 3.55%.
It also contains a change-of-control clause requiring IREIT Global to prepay the loan if CDL or its subsidiaries cease to be substantial shareholders of the trust’s manager, IREIT Global Group.
IREIT Global Group is jointly owned by alternative asset manager Tikehau Capital and CDL, both of which also act as the trust’s joint sponsors, according to information on its website.
The Business Times reported earlier this year that the manager intends to redevelop the Berlin Campus into a mixed-use, multi-let property incorporating office, retail and hospitality components. The former main tenant, Deutsche Rentenversicherung Bund, vacated the development late last year.
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IREIT Global’s Berlin Campus development. Photo courtesy of IREIT Global |
The trust has secured two key hospitality tenants for the redevelopment project. It said in a business update for the third quarter released last month that the repositioning is expected to have a “significant impact” on its distributions to unitholders.
IREIT says on its website that its portfolio consists of five freehold office assets in Germany and four in Spain, along with 44 retail properties in France, with total lettable space of about 425,000 square meters.
Excluding the Berlin Campus, its portfolio occupancy stood at 89% as at Sep. 30, lower than the previous quarter’s 89.5%, it said in the update.
CDL is controlled by the Kwek family, which is led by billionaire Kwek Leng Beng and ranked second on Forbes’ list of Singapore’s 50 richest this year with an estimated net worth of US$14.3 billion.
