black stone It closed the refinancing of its Spanish subsidiary Testa, which has more than 10,000 apartments. The North American investment fund has been based in Spain since the outbreak of the real estate crisis in 2008. Agreement signed with Testa’s creditor bank in 2018 to extend the loan, which expires in 2024. With this operation, Blackstone extends its subsidiary’s obligations for three or even five years “provided that certain conditions are met.”
At the end of 2022, long-term debts of 1 billion 670 million euros to credit institutions appeared in Testa’s accounts. The company’s total liabilities reached 1,825 million lira. These are debts falling within the scope of refinancing settled at an interest rate referenced to Euribor plus a margin “at market conditions”, as confirmed in a relevant fact submitted by Testa to the regulator.
Testa’s debt stems from Blackstone’s acquisition of the company from Banco Santander, BBVA, Acciona and Merlin Properties. After closing the transaction, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Société Générale and Banco Santander They lent 1,520 million to the subsidiary of the North American fund. They then agreed on a two-year maturity, extendable up to five, with the final maturity in February 2024. In recent months, this loan has been in the following status: ‘cash trap’The creditor bank was obligated to retain all proceeds from Testa’s sales.
Blackstone’s third major refinancing
In addition to Testa, Blackstone also closed the refinancing of Fidere, one of its rental landlord companies, in 2023. In this case, the company announced last May that it had reached an agreement with Crédit Agricole, BNP Paribas and CitiBank to obtain a loan. 440 million euro loan. The size of this company is much smaller than Testa’s. However, its debt was also first signed in 2018 and had to be renegotiated between 2023 and 2024.
Before the refinancing, Fidere had only 386 million outstanding depreciation. New debt with a maturity of 2 to 5 years, 426 million green syndicated loans and 25 million additional tranchesThere will be only 14 million of them. On this occasion, the signed interest rate was: Euribor and 2.5% difference.
Also in the first quarter Blackstone refinances Hotel Investment Partners (HIP)Another of its investments in Southern Europe biggest owner Hotels in spain. They participated in this debt operation Morgan Stanley and Crédit Agricolethey lent 680 million euros one is senior debt and the other is split into two tranches Entresol. Once the liabilities were sorted, Blackstone allowed Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, which bought a 35% stake last October, into HIP’s capital. This has been one of the main hotel operations in Spain with an estimated value of 1,400 million.