Australian Super stumps up $420m in debt for London project

The country's largest pension fund, Australian Super, has teamed up with its longstanding advisor, TH Real Estate, to jointly finance One Crown Place in London with a £280 million development loan, worth around $510 million. AustralianSuper itself has committed £230 million, with the remainder to be financed by TH Real Estate's recently launched Global Real Estate Debt Partners Fund II. Significantly, it is the first piece of commercial property debt issued by AustralianSuper in the UK. One Crown Place is a mixed-use scheme being developed by Malaysian conglomerate MTD Group. When completed it will comprise 136,000 square feet (12,634 square metres) of office space, along with a 7000 sq ft retail component, a 41-bed boutique hotel and 246 luxury residential units. "The One Crown Place transaction strongly aligns with our real estate debt strategy to target high-quality opportunities secured against institutional assets in top-tier locations in European cities," said the super fund's head of mid risk, Jason Peasley. Australian Super's commercial real estate debt mandate targets opportunities in London and other major European cities with a focus on mezzanine and development/refurbishment opportunities for investments in excess of £100 million.