NEW JERSEY—Prudential Mortgage Capital Company has closed a $108 million, 11-year commercial real estate loan in the U.K., the first financing since launching its European business earlier this year. Prudential Mortgage Capital Company is the commercial mortgage lending business of Prudential Financial Inc.
The loan is secured by a portfolio of U.K. properties, including four multi-tenanted office properties in central London and a grocery-anchored retail property in Bath.
The portfolio’s sponsor, the O&H Group, is a family-run business with holdings and development projects in central London and throughout the U.K.
In 2012 Prudential is targeting $500 million of long-term, fixed-rate senior debt transactions in Europe. The European program is similar to the loan structures the company offers in the U.S., and as in the U.S., there is the ability to fund individual transactions of significant size. All debt will be denominated in local currency and secured by income-producing real estate.
Initially the company is focusing on office, logistics, multifamily and retail properties in and around large population centers such as London, Paris and the major cities in Germany. On the European continent such financing transactions may also be structured in collaboration with local banks.
“The diversification we can achieve by investing a portion of our portfolio outside of the U.S., whether it’s Europe, Japan, or Mexico, is very valuable,” said Thor Orndahl, a managing director who oversees Prudential Mortgage Capital Company’s non-U.S. mortgage platform. “The current market dislocation has provided the opening we have been looking for, and our plan is to be active in Europe for many years to come.”