The £225m loan behind the iconic nine-acre Camden Lock is included in the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation’s €22bn (£18.5bn) loan book sell-off.
The facility, secured on the north London development opportunity owned by Israeli investor Bebo Kobo, Richard Caring and Chelsfield Partners, has come to the market this week as part of around £6.3bn of UK-originated debt being sold by special liquidator KPMG.
At the end of last year the IBRC gave the owning consortium a one-year extension, to March 2014, to repay the former Anglo Irish loan and bring forward a £300m mixed-use development on the site. In March Deloitte was drafted in to help with the refinancing but it is understood no fresh debt has been secured to date.
It is one of around 2,300 loans advanced to more than 300 borrowers with a nominal value of £6.3bn which have just come to the market through the KPMG-run process known as Project Rock.
The loans have been split into five sub-pools with the largest tranche comprising loans secured against UK assets. The remaining sub-pools have split the underlying collateral on a broad geographic or sector basis. The pool contains a high proportion of hotel assets.
There are also around eight to 12 stand-alone assets with underlying collateral related to hotel and fitness groups.
The open-market process has resulted in KPMG sending a confidential investment overview to up to 200 potential purchasers and funders.
First-round bids are due at the end of the month. There is scepticism over whether any sales will be completed after the Irish government applied a shallow maximum discount at which the loans can be sold
Interested parties are expected to make bids applying a greater discount, so may not overcome this pricing hurdle.
bridget.oconnell@estatesgazette.com
