CREDIT SUISSE HIGH : GE buys $1bln of property loans from Credit Suisse
July 01, 2008 at 05:45 am EDT
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LONDON (Reuters) - The property investment arm of U.S. conglomerate General Electric has bought a portfolio of loans from Credit Suisse for 642 million euros ($1.01 billion), it said on Tuesday.
GE Real Estate said it had acquired a portfolio of 10 loans on a range of properties in Germany, Switzerland, Spain and Britain.
In a statement, it said the loans had "attractive" loan-to-value ratios, without giving details.
The purchase adds to GE Real Estate's growing haul of secondary European real estate debt at a time when property values are under pressure and lending to property investors has grown more scarce due to a global credit crunch.
GE Real Estate snapped up a 1.3 billion euro loan portfolio from Capmark Europe in April and 2 billion pounds ($3.99 billion) of commercial property loans from British mortgage lender Bradford & Bingley in November 2007.
(Reporting by William Kemble-Diaz; Editing by Quentin Bryar)
(See www.reutersrealestate.com for the global service for real estate professionals from Reuters).
Credit Suisse High Yield Bond Fund (the Fund) is a non-diversified, closed-end management investment company. The Fund's investment objective is to seek a high current income. The Fund will also seek capital appreciation as a secondary objective. The Fund invests in various sectors, such as advertising, aerospace and defense, auto parts and equipment, automakers, brokerage, building and construction, building materials, cable and satellite television, chemicals, consumer/commercial/lease financing, diversified capital goods, electronics, energy exploration and production, environmental, food-wholesale, gas distribution, health facilities, health services, real estate investment trusts, software-services, specialty retail, steel producers/products, support-services, theaters and entertainment, transport infrastructure/services, machinery, collateralized debt obligations, restaurants, pharmaceuticals and packaging. The Fund's investment advisor is Credit Suisse Asset Management, LLC.