* Deutsche bid wins $911 mln loan portfolio
* Portfolio includes loans on 26 golf courses
* Deal set to close in second quarter
By Ilaina Jonas
NEW YORK, May 31 (Reuters) – Deutsche Bank AG
said on Thursday it was the winning bidder of a portfolio of
loans with a face value of $911 million sold by Capmark
Financial Group Inc, ending a fiercely competitive
auction process that attracted hedge funds and private equity
players.
The collection of mostly still performing yet highly levered
loans are to be sold to Deutsche Bank’s Special Situations
Group, which deals in more complex real estate financing and
buying distressed commercial mortgage debt.
“The bank’s purchase of this high quality real estate
portfolio is to meet the needs of clients of our commercial real
estate business,” a Deutsche Bank spokeswoman said.
Deutsche Bank declined to disclose the price it will pay for
the portfolio. But a source familiar with the deal said the
winning bid would come to about 82 to 83 cents on the dollar
based on the face value of $930 million when the portfolio hit
the market last month.
A spokesman for Capmark declined comment.
The pending sale marks another auction of loans sold by
lenders who are winding down their operations — victims of the
credit crisis, the downturn in commercial real estate, and, in
some cases, aggressive lending.
The portfolio consists of 57 loans on about 65 properties,
sources said. The largest is a $96.8 million mortgage on 26 golf
courses owned by a joint venture between Parthenon Capital of
Boston and Joe Guerra’s Sequoia Golf of Peachtree City, Georgia.
That is followed by two loans on Chicago properties: an
$80.1 million mortgage on the Double-Tree by Hilton hotel at 300
East Ohio Street and a $48.5 million mortgage on a 523,000
square-foot office building at 1 North State St.
Capmark, which was created in March 2006 through a leveraged
buyout of the commercial real estate assets of GMAC, General
Motors’ finance arm, filed for bankruptcy in 2009. It emerged
last year under a $4 billion reorganization plan and was ordered
to liquidate its portfolio.
Last month, US Bancorp, Wells Fargo & Co and
private equity firm Blackstone Group LP, emerged as the
winners of a $740 million portfolio of performing loans sold by
German lender Eurohypo.
Many failed European banks have sold loans backed by U.S.
commercial real estate. The biggest offering came last year,
when Anglo Irish Bank Corp Ltd sold its vast
portfolio with a face value topping $9 billon. Wells Fargo, Loan
Star Funds and JPMorgan Chase & Co won that bid.
