Blackstone has appointed HSBC and ING to refinance the French portfolio of its Logicor business.
The deal rounds off its search for almost £1bn of new finance as part of a process codenamed St Pancras.
The two banks were selected this week to refinance the circa €600m (£447m) French portion of the logistics subsidiary in a process that will see the two lenders provide individual loans secured against two almost equal pools of assets.
Together they will provide around €400m of debt on five-year deals, reflecting an overall loan-to-value of close to 65%.
The two banks are understood to have won the deal with bids in the region of 165bps.
The mandate attracted strong interest, particularly in the French domestic market, with both Credit Agricole and BNP Paribas putting in competitive bids.
ING has been one of Europe’s most active lenders in the past year. Its most notable deal was its £365m financing of Safra Group’s acquisition of the Gherkin at 30 St Mary Axe, EC3, in December 2014.
In that deal ING syndicated the majority of the loan and it is expected that the Logicor deal will follow the same tactic.
HSBC’s current push in Europe is being led by Steve Willingham, who joined in June last year from BlackRock.
The awarding of the French mandate decision comes two weeks after Goldman Sachs was selected to provide the refinance on Blackstone’s £680m UK portfolio.
The deal involved Goldman providing a whole loan priced at slightly more than 200bps over Libor. The US investment bank is expected to securitise the loan rather than syndicate it.
Blackstone wants to reduce Logicor’s financing costs as it builds towards an exit of the business it established in 2012, either through an IPO or a trade sale.
Eastdil Secured is advising Blackstone on the refinancing.
