Trei Real Estate GmbH (“Trei”), an internationally active property developer and property asset holder of residential and retail real estate, just took out a loan over the amount of 38 million euros from Berliner Sparkasse. The funds will be used to finance the development of a mixed residential/retail building on Winsstrasse in Berlin. The loan combines construction finance with a subsequent long-term financing arrangement with a ten-year maturity. The initial disbursement was made in April of this year, with further disbursements to follow in periodic drawdowns in sync with the progress of construction. The mixed residential/retail building at Winsstrasse 18 and its rental income serve as collateral. The building Trei is developing on Winsstrasse in the Prenzlauer Berg district of Berlin divides into about 187 rental apartments (11,300 square metres) on six upper floors and about 2,700 square metres of commercial floor area on the ground floor that will be occupied by an Edeka supermarket, among other units. The development is scheduled for completion by the end of 2022. It is the second development – after the recently completed mixed residential/retail building on Pappelallee, also in Berlin – that involves the demolition and overbuilding of a Cold-War-era supermarket in East Berlin by Trei.
Matthias Schultz, the CFO of Trei Real Estate, elaborated: “The loan represents a classic property financing arrangement. We will use the borrowed capital to push forward with our development on Winsstrasse. Through this long-term financing arrangement with its ten-year maturity, we already secured the currently favourable lending terms for the long run. It is the second financing deal of this magnitude that we concluded with Berliner Sparkasse. In both instances, our collaboration conducted itself very professionally and in the spirit of partnership.”
Pepijn Morshuis, CEO of Trei Real Estate, commented: “Obtaining financing for Winsstrasse is part of the funding strategy for our large-scale residential developments in Germany. The idea in each case is to borrow half of the investment total – using equity capital to finance the land acquisition, the planning and development costs while using debt funding to cover the construction costs. The reason we always aim for a combination of construction and long-term financing is that we intend to keep these assets in our portfolio.” Overall, Trei is currently developing eight residential projects in Germany, three of them in Berlin.