Lone Star Europe has begun sounding out options for a €400m (£300.7m) refinancing of a portfolio of Irish offices, in a major test of confidence in the Irish market.
The US private equity giant, through US broker Eastdil Secured, has approached a number of banks for the debt.
Assets in the portfolio include the 210,000 sq ft Iveagh Court complex and CityNorth, a 100-acre mixed-use office and hotel development, the 107,000 sq ft Watermarque Building (pictured), the 28,309 sq ft 11-12 Hogan Place, and Marsh House, the 60,000 sq ft Irish headquarters of insurance firm Marsh.
The portfolio is valued at around €550m, which would represent a loan-to-value ratio of 73%.
It would be one of the largest Irish prime refinancing deals this cycle.
The assets were purchased at heavy discounts from Ireland’s National Asset Management Agency in January 2014, in a €220m process known as Project Holly.
As the final selection of assets is flexible, sources said Lone Star could also seek to leverage against 25 Merrion Square and Independent House on Talbot Street, home to the Irish Independent newspaper – a package of properties it secured last September for around €400m through pool A of the Achill Portfolio from Ulster Bank.
Local sources said the level of appetite for the debt would be a key litmus test for financial institutions’ confidence in the Irish recovery, and for the readiness of the market to accept high loan-to-value ratios.
