LBBW has been selected by Sinar Mas to finance its purchase of the Alphabeta building in Finsbury Square, EC2.
The German bank was selected to provide a medium- term acquisition loan of close to five years at a relatively low loan- to-value ratio, the sort of deal the bank specialises in and reflective of Indonesian conglomerate Sinar Mas’s plentiful cash resources.
The bank is understood to have supplied the Indonesian investor with a loan in the conservative range of 40-50% of the purchase price of £280m.
As the building is fully let and in a prime location on the edge of the City and the Old Street tech quarter, combined with the low leverage, the margin on the deal is expected to be as low as 150bps over Libor.
Sinar Mas secured the building, formerly known as Triton Court, in July this year from Resolution Capital, which had in turn purchased it in 2012 for just £43m.
Resolution had overseen a radical redevelopment of the site from a former banking hall and conventional office space to a hub for financial technology companies featuring bike ramps and communal break-out areas.
Resolution then managed to secure tenants such as Silicon Valley Bank, We Are Social, Open Table and Maxus Global.
LBBW has been an active lender in the City and West End office market in recent months. It supplied around £120m for the Tsai family’s purchase of 95 Wigmore Street, W1 as well as joining ING in the £325m refinancing of Sea Containers House, SE1, for Archlane.
In addition the German bank was part of a trio of lenders including ING and Qatari National Bank which provided a £350m senior loan to refinance 25 Churchill Place, E14.
