The worlds biggest property lender has done its first UK deal, write Adam Coffer and Robert Gibson.
The $134bn GMAC Commercial Mortgages is backing former Jones Lang LaSalle directors Maurice Golker and Mark Morris in their investment companys first acquisition – a £150m central London portfolio.
The pair, who until June ran JLLs Private Client Real Estate division and were among the firms biggest fee-earners, are understood to have teamed up with GMAC to buy a collection of offices from different vendors in the City and West End.
The largest asset in the £150m package is the Prudentials £80m 185,000 sq ft 52-56 Leadenhall Street, 106 Fenchurch Street and 2-5 Fenchurch Buildings, EC3 – home to the London Metal Exchange.
The portfolio is also said to include Herons James Capel House, 6 Bevis Marks, EC3. The 102,000 sq ft former HSBC office is sublet to Alexander Forbes at around £40 per sq ft.
It is the first deal for Morriss and Golkers Investream, which is buying the portfolio along with private investor equity.
The equity is understood to have come from former PCRE clients. PCRE, which controlled £1.5bn of assets, represented high-net-worth individuals.
The deal marks the first UK loan for General Motors subsidiary GMAC. As revealed in EG (News, 25 May) a GMAC team, headed by Kathy Gleason, has been in the UK since early summer.
Investream is understood to have identified a number of acquisitions, including shopping centre portfolios and City offices, and GMAC is believed to be keen to build up the loan to over £400m.
Morris and Golker were at the centre of the two largest investment deals last year, representing the purchaser, Westbrook Partners and private clients, in the acquisition of a £365m portfolio and the purchaser of a £300m portfolio from Royal London Asset Management.
Neither of them would comment on this weeks deal, but Morris said: “We are actively sourcing and acquiring large portfolios. We are keen on good asset management opportunities and see many such opportunities arising in the City and shopping centre sectors.”
BH2 acted for Prudential, while Insignia Richard Ellis represented Heron.
EGi News 16/09/02
