ARETE group successfully refinances its fund portfolio during the pandemic and now has a bank loan of up to EUR 80 million available

Prague, 3rd June 2020 – On 30th April, the ARETE investment and real estate group signed a contract with Raiffeisenbank for a loan of up to EUR 80 million. The funds will be used to refinance the existing real estate portfolio of ARETE’s second fund (ARETE INVEST CEE II sub-fund) and to invest into new industrial real estate construction while preserving a safe ratio of bank financing to fund asset value. For ARETE’s second fund this ratio is currently 43%, one of the lowest of all the qualified investor funds on the market.

“Our real estate portfolio is high quality, with high value and profitability. The provided credit line of EUR 80 million shows that our fund is stable and resilient even in the current situation when the provision of new loans by banks is stagnating – the confidence shown in us by Raiffeisen is definite proof of that. Financing with such an amount at a time like this is really an exceptional success,” said Lubor Svoboda, ARETE group co-founder.

“The funding brings our fund high stability and the certainty of sufficient capital backing. Yet it also brings new potential for portfolio growth, as the loan will be used flexibly based on our actual needs. This will allow us to take advantage of new opportunities on the market. At the same time, we want to keep the bank loan to asset value ratio at a safe level. It is at times like these that our strategy of lower indebtedness proves to be an unequivocal competitive advantage,” adds Robert Ides, the other ARETE group co-founder.

The preparations for the refinancing and provision of a new credit line took a few months and the final agreement was made on 30 April. The goals of the newly signed contract were to simplify the administrative load arising from the eleven separate existing loans, and to enable higher flexibility for the funding of new construction. The legal aspects of the entire transaction were supervised by experienced law firms – Kocián Šolc Balaštík for ARETE and Clifford Chance for the bank.

The second ARETE fund was established in 2016 and is gradually building up a homogeneous portfolio of industrial real estate in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The total cumulative gross return for 2019 reached 115%, while the gross return for the previous year was 8.9%. The value of the managed assets at the end of 2019 exceeded CZK 2.4 billion and will grow further in 2020 thanks to halls currently being completed. This fund was closed for the entry of new investors in 2018.

A third ARETE group fund opened for investors at the beginning of 2020 that will not only invest into completed industrial real estate in Central and Eastern Europe but also itself construct new logistics and manufacturing buildings. The portfolio target value should come close to CZK 12 billion, and the portfolio should include over 600,000 m2 of leasable area and over 300,000 m2 of building land for further construction.