The €250 mln loan has a 10-year term, with Helaba assuming the full underwriting of the financing, and syndicating parts of the amount via the digital financing platform ‘vc trade’.

Quartier 205 is a mixed-use property located between Friedrichstraße and Gendarmenmarkt in Berlin-Mitte, comprising approximately 52,000 m2 of rental space and 484 parking spaces; the remaining two-thirds of it are being used as office space.

Quartier 205 was developed by Tishman Speyer in the mid-1990s as a building for ‘dynamic mixed-use of working, living and shopping’ in the historic centre of Berlin. The infrastructure and public transportation connections are exceptionally good due to its strategic location directly by the city centre subway station.

Innovative element
The loan agreement includes an innovative social component in which the bank and the investor make an annual contribution to a selected local charity. This innovative partnership is the fourth of its kind for Tishman Speyer and its Tishman Speyer European Core Fund (TSEC), a fund designed to promote environmental and sustainable features under Article 8 of the European SFDR Regulation. It builds on numerous positive ESG initiatives which the company has undertaken in recent years, in an effort to make a positive contribution to society in these challenging times.

Fritz Müller, Head of Real Estate Finance Germany Regions at Helaba, is delighted by the transaction: ‘I am very grateful for the renewed trust placed in us by our client Tishman Speyer with the financing of Quartier 205. This transaction is a confirmation of our long-standing very good customer relationship, and a confirmation of our particular approach to relationship banking here at Helaba.’

Johannes Schmarje, Managing Director of Tishman Speyer in Berlin, commented: ‘With this refinancing, we are continuing our commitment to the Berlin real estate market over the next few years, which is precisely where we had started over 25 years ago with this same building. We are grateful to Helaba for their continued support and look forward to further strengthening the very good and sustainable relationship we have built with them over the years.’

Digital financing platform vc trade
For the syndication portion, Helaba used the digital financing platform ‘vc trade’ for the first time ever, in which the bank has also been a shareholder since the beginning of 2022. Alongside the investment by Crédit Mutuel (BECM) in the amount of €50 mln, which was effected via the traditional process, the second syndication to Berliner Sparkasse in the same amount took place purely digitally.

vc trade is an independent, bank-centric marketplace for debt capital which is used by over 900 investors. The platform enables efficient and intelligent end-to-end workflows and creates new, uniform market standards through process automation.

Succeeding promissory SSD, which Helaba markets exclusively via vc trade, and the recent placement of a corporate loan, the real estate financing Quartier 205 is now the third asset class to be successfully syndicated via vc trade.

‘We are pleased to now be able to offer our syndication partners an innovative platform for participating in syndicated loans in real estate finance with vc trade,’ explains Dietmar Klein, Head of Syndication Real Estate Finance at Helaba.

‘vc trade is indeed convincing due to its efficient and transparent mapping and processing of transactions, which makes the already very well-established process even faster and consistently more digital for our partner savings banks,’ adds Tobias Werner, who was part of the Syndication team responsible for the Quartier 205 transaction.

‘Executing this transaction together with Helaba via vc trade was completely new for us. Everything worked completely smoothly – and, in addition, very quickly and intuitively. We are pleased to be part of this lighthouse financing,’ says Marcus Buder, division manager for commercial real estate financing at Berliner Sparkasse.

Tishman Speyer was advised by Taylor Wessing, and Helaba by Simmons & Simmons LLP.