GE Real Estate has bought a €1.3bn (£1.04bn) portfolio of discounted commercial property loans in the UK and Germany from Capmark Europe as it takes advantage of continuing difficulties in the debt markets. Financial Times
Capmark would normally have packaged and sold the loans on the commercial mortgage-backed securities market, but paralysis in that sector has allowed GE to secure a discounted price to buy the loans from the real estate lender. The deal is rumoured to have been carried out at a discount of as much as 8% across two portfolio deals at the beginning of April and yesterday, although no party would confirm the figure.
In total, GE bought 39 senior and whole loans on a mixture of retail and office properties made to what it describes as high-quality borrowers with attractive loan to values.