Kennedy Wilson Pays €855M ($12B) for London & Ireland Portfolio

Kennedy Wilson Europe Real Estate plc, a subsidiary of the global real estate investment and services firm Kennedy Wilson, announced this week that it had acquired the Fordgate Jupiter Portfolio for an aggregate consideration of approximately £685 million (including approximately £202 million of assumed non-recourse debt). Following completion of these acquisitions, the company has invested, or committed to invest, over 85% of the net cash proceeds raised through its IPO carried out in February, according to a PropertyEU article.

"This transaction illustrates our unique ability to invest across asset class, capital structure and different instruments to access and control quality real estate assets," said Mary Ricks, President and CEO of Kennedy Wilson Europe. "The highly visible and secure income, complemented by strong underlying tenancies, together with a number of asset management plays, including leasing efforts, which we have already identified in the portfolio, make this an extremely attractive investment for us."

The mixed use Fordgate Jupiter Portfolio includes 21 properties located across the UK, including nine offices, two mixed, five car showrooms, three leisure, one retail and one warehouse, where the top seven assets represent 84% of the total value of the portfolio. Kennedy Wilson Europe Real Estate, which invests primarily in real estate and real estate loans in Europe, said its overall portfolio now consists of seven portfolios of property made up of offices and mixed-use developments, and one loan portfolio comprising five real estate loans under receivership secured against five properties located across England.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Kennedy Wilson and Deutsche Bank Acquire $449M Irish Loan Portfolio

Kennedy Wilson, an international real estate investment and services company headquartered in Beverly Hills, in partnership with the European Commercial Real Estate Group of Deutsche Bank AG, acquired a loan portfolio with an unpaid principal balance of €361 million ($449 million). The partnership grabbed the portfolio of Irish property loans from Lloyds Banking Group at a huge discount, with Independent.ie reporting that the buyers are understood to have paid less than 20c in the euro for the loans. Gibson Dunn's London office as well as Dublin-based William Fry provided legal advice on the acquisition.

"We are seeing signs of recovery in the Irish property market," said Mary Ricks, president and CEO of Kennedy Wilson Europe. "Investor confidence is returning and there is a good macro-economic recovery story in Ireland that is starting to play out."

While both Deutsche and Kennedy Wilson declined to comment further to GlobeSt.com about the deal, Kennedy Wilson said in a statement that the properties are predominately commercial real estate assets across a mixture of asset classes, with the majority located in Dublin.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

$1.8B London Loan Portfolio Sold

Kennedy Wilson, an international real estate investment and services company headquartered in Beverly Hills, CA, announced this week that it had entered into an agreement to purchase a loan portfolio from Bank of Ireland for $1.8 billion according to a Bloomberg report. "The biggest opportunities are in Europe," said Chief Executive Officer William McMorrow in a telephone interview. "The U.S. banks have all raised capital and they're not under as much pressure right now to sell assets." The purchase will close in two phases, with $1.4 billion completed on Friday, October 21 and an additional $400 million expected to close at the end of November.

Mary Ricks, executive vice chair of Kennedy Wilson, said of the deal that the "Kennedy Wilson team did an excellent job on this complex transaction, and we believe that this closing will serve as a base for the company's further expansion in Europe."

About 70% of the loans are secured on office, apartment and retail properties in London reported The Irish Times. Bank of Ireland disclosed the transaction when it announced earlier this month that it had deleveraged the bank by disposing of about €5 billion of loans – half of it non-core loans – at a discount of 9% on their face value.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.