DLA Piper advises Aareal Bank on the financing of an international retail property portfolio

DLA Piper has advised Aareal Bank AG on providing a EUR360 million senior facility for the financing of an international retail property portfolio by Pradera European Retail Parks SCSp, advised by Pradera Europe Limited. The portfolio comprises a total of 17 retail properties in Germany, France and Poland with a total of over 400,000 sqm lettable area.

Aareal Bank Group, headquartered in Wiesbaden, is a leading international property specialist. It provides smart financings, software products, and digital solutions for the property sector and related industries, and is present across three continents: Europe, North America and Asia. Aareal Bank AG, whose shares are included in Deutsche Börse's SDAX index, is the Group's parent entity. It manages the various entities organised in the Group’s business segments: Structured Property Financing, Banking & Digital Solutions, and Aareon.

The pan-European cross-practice DLA Piper team was led by partner Dr Torsten Pokropp and included counsel Martin Wilmsen and foreign associate Dr Zsuzsanna Somogyi-Csizmazia (all Finance & Projects, Frankfurt), partner Christian Lonquich and associate Sascha Ryssok (both Real Estate, Frankfurt), of counsel Martin Heinsius (Tax, Frankfurt) and senior legal project manager Tamara Schwenk (Frankfurt). In addition, DLA Piper teams in Czech Republic, Poland, Luxembourg and UK were involved.

In-House the transaction was advised on the legal side by Katrin Schellberg (lead), Aminata Omog and Paulina Kotecka.