Rechercher dans la communauté

Trump Files Suit Against Lenders Developer Seeks to Extend $640 Million Loan on a Chicago Skyscraper Wsj.com By ALEX FRANGOS Tall Trouble: Donald Trump's Chicago skyscraper project, the Trump International Hotel & Tower, during construction in July. Mr. Trump is suing to extend a $640 million senior construction loan on the 92-story Trump International Hotel & Tower from a group of lenders led by Deutsche Bank AG and including a unit of Merrill Lynch & Co., Union Labor Life Insurance Co., iStar Financial Inc., a publicly traded real-estate investment trust, and Highland Funds, a unit of Highland Capital Management LP. The tower, which contains 339 hotel rooms and 486 condominiums, will be the second-tallest building in the U.S. behind Chicago's Sears Tower and is expected to be completed in mid-2009. The hotel, on the lower floors, opened earlier this year. But sales of both the hotel rooms and the condominiums have come in below original estimates and the project's current projected revenue remains short by nearly $100 million needed to pay off the senior lenders. The lawsuit, filed in New York State supreme court in Queens, is a further indication of the dysfunction in the real-estate lending markets as borrowers and lenders struggle to resolve troubled projects. People familiar with the matter say the lender group, which is made up of more than a dozen institutions, was unable to agree on the extension. The suit demands -- among other things -- that an extension provision in the original loan agreement be triggered because of the "unprecedented financial crisis in the credit markets now prevailing, in part due to acts Deutsche Bank itself participated in." This so-called force majeure provision is common in contracts and can be applied to acts of war and natural disasters. Mr. Trump already extended the loan once in May. From the Archives Mr. Trump asked for $3 billion in damages. The suit won't affect construction of the project, according to people familiar who say there is enough money to complete the $90 million work that is left. The suit says Mr. Trump attempted to resolve the impasse by offering to buy the project's unsold hotel units for $97 million. That money would be used to pay down the construction loan, along with the $204 million in proceeds from closed units and the $353 million that is expected from units that close in the next six months. A Deutsche Bank spokesman declined to comment. Mr. Trump has put $77 million of his own equity into the tower, which he would stand to lose in a potential foreclosure. Other than a $40 million guarantee to complete the project, Mr. Trump has no recourse obligations to the project. A Trump spokesman declined to comment. [Trump, Donald] Deutsche Bank originated the construction loan in 2005 and sold off most of it to others, retaining less than $10 million of exposure on that loan. The suit alleges that Deutsche Bank compromised the senior construction loan by selling pieces off to "so many institutions, banks, junk bond firms, and virtually anybody that seemed to come along," that the lending group is unable to come to a consensus on how to deal with the matter. It also alleges Deutsche Bank created a "serious conflict of interest" by taking a separate stake in the project's so-called mezzanine loan that was originated by private-equity firm Fortress Investment Group. The mezzanine loan, which is junior to the senior construction loan, had an original principal of $130 million but will eventually accrue to $360 million. Deutsche Bank purchased roughly one-quarter of the mezzanine loan, according to people familiar with the matter. The suit names the mezzanine lenders as defendants, including Fortress and its affiliates, Newcastle Investment Corp. and Drawbridge Special Opportunities Fund, as well as Dune Capital Management and Blackacre Institutional Capital Management, the real-estate arm of Cerberus Capital Management. Fortress didn't respond to a request for comment. The other lenders declined to comment. Unless sales of the condo and hotel units restart despite the worst housing market in generations, and quickly generate $400 million in new sales, it will be difficult for the project to pay off the mezzanine loan, which comes due in May 2009.

(Courtesy of The New York Times) Holy crap! The new AT&T going to have 129.23 million customers. It would be like Bell buying out Telus.

By Sarah Mulholland April 23 (Bloomberg) -- Loan extensions will likely be insufficient to prevent a wave of commercial real-estate defaults as borrowers struggle to refinance debt amid tighter lending standards and plummeting property values, according to Deutsche Bank AG analysts. As much as $1 trillion in commercial mortgages maturing during the next decade will be unable to secure financing without significant cash injections from property owners, according to the Deutsche analysts. At least two-thirds, or $410 billion, of commercial mortgages bundled and sold as bonds coming due between 2009 and 2018 will need additional cash infusions to refinance, the analysts led by Richard Parkus in New York said in a report yesterday. Many commercial real-estate borrowers will be unwilling or unable to put additional equity into the properties, and will have to negotiate to extend the loan or walk away from the property, the analysts said. The volume of potentially troubled loans and declining real-estate values will make loan extensions harder to obtain. “The scale of this issue is virtually unprecedented in commercial real estate, and its impact is likely to dominate the industry for the better part of a decade,” the analysts said. Many dismiss the seriousness of the problem by assuming lenders will agree to extend maturities, according to the report. That approach might work if the amount of loans that failed to refinance was relatively small, but the percentage is likely to be 60 to 70 percent, the analysts said. The overhang of distressed real estate will hinder price appreciation, making lenders less likely to extend mortgages with the expectation that the value of the property will rise enough to qualify for refinancing, the analysts said. Loans made in 2007 when prices peaked and underwriting standards bottomed will face the biggest hurdles to refinancing. Roughly 80 percent of commercial mortgages packaged into bonds in 2007 wouldn’t qualify for refinancing, according to Deutsche data.

La première banque allemande ne fait pas exception dans le secteur bancaire, prévoyant une perte importante pour l'année 2008. Pour en lire plus...

La fermeture de DHL Express aux États-Unis n'affectera pas les activités de la division canadienne de l'entreprise appartenant à la Deutsche Post. Pour en lire plus...

Le géant allemand de la logistique, la Deutsche Post, a annoncé lundi qu'il mettra fin à ses activités de livraison express aux États-Unis et y supprimera 9500 emplois. Pour en lire plus...

La Bank of America, la banque japonaise Nomura Securities, la française BNP-Paribas, l'allemande Deutsche Bank ou encore la britannique Barclay's serait sur les rangs. Pour en lire plus...

La plus grosse banque allemande annonce des dépréciations d'actifs de 2,3 milliards d'euros et des profits en recul de 63% au deuxième trimestre. Pour en lire plus...

Selon Deutsche Bank, la banque américaine aurait de grosses dépréciations d'actifs à annoncer, ce qui pourrait la pousser à lancer une nouvelle augmentation de capital. Pour en lire plus...