Natixis Provides $105M Loan for Industrial Portfolio Purchase

42 Industrial Way. Image via Google Street View

Natixis recently provided an approximately $104.8 million loan for Oliver Street Capital and Bain Capital Real Estate’s acquisition of the Boston Infill Portfolio, a 687,000-square-foot group of industrial properties in suburban Boston. The financing helped facilitate the joint venture’s purchase of the portfolio from I. Fred Dicenso Trust LLC for a total of $154 million.

Natixis supplied Oliver Street and Bain with a five-year, floating-rate loan, arranged on the borrowers’ behalf by Tim O’Donnell and David Douvadjian, Jr. of Newmark’s debt group.

“Natixis continues to lend on assets that have demonstrated resiliency in this environment and industrial has been a leading sector where we continue to see financing opportunities,” Mike Magner, co-head, Real Estate & Hospitality Americas, with Natixis Corporate & Investment Banking Americas, told Commercial Property Executive.

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The 49-acre Boston Infill Portfolio sits just 15 miles from downtown Boston in Wilmington, Mass. The collection encompasses eight buildings, all of which are positioned in high-barrier-to-entry infill locations near Interstates 93 and 95. The list of properties consists of 21, 42, 65 and 80 Industrial Way; 42 and 80 Rear Industrial Way; 1 Progress Way; and 844 Woburn Street.

The portfolio is a lender’s dream. At the time of the sale transaction, the group of industrial facilities was 96 percent leased to 27 tenants, including Crate & Barrel, Energy Sciences, 3Step Sports and Altro USA Inc. Additionally, the portfolio, which boasts an average occupancy of 97 percent since 1998, offers upside potential through lease rollover with in-place rents that are 27 percent below market rate.

It’s the Asset, Not the Asset Type

Pandemic-induced disruption led to an estimated 27.5 percent year-over-year decline in commercial real estate financing activity, according to a fourth quarter 2020 capital markets report by Newmark. Overall, lending went on the upswing for industrial property but decreased in the office sector. However, 2021 appears to be bringing change, as more lenders give office assets a second look, particularly those properties in growth markets.

As for Natixis, the company has continued to look at opportunities based on assets, as opposed to asset types.

In the first quarter of 2021, Natixis supplied a $39.3 million loan for the refinancing of Remount I & II, a 300,000-square-foot, two-building office complex in North Charleston, S.C., that caters predominantly to high technology integration and government contractors.

The multinational financial services firm also provided $82.5 million in financing for a 435,000-square-foot office campus leased to government, non-profit and healthcare tenants in Orange County, Calif.