Paramount Lands $300M Refi for Manhattan Asset

By Scott Baltic, Contributing Editor

In its latest transaction, Paramount Group Inc. has completed a $300 million refinancing of 712 Fifth Ave., a 52-story, 543,000-square-foot Class A office building in Manhattan’s Plaza District, the REIT announced late Tuesday.

712 Fifth in Manhattan

The new 10-year, interest-only loan matures in July 2027 and has a fixed rate of 3.39 percent. Net proceeds from the refinancing were used to repay the existing $246.5 million loan that bore interest at 4.41 percent and was scheduled to mature in March 2018. Paramount’s 50 percent share of the net proceeds, after the repayment of the existing loan, closing costs and required reserves, reportedly was about $20 million.

“This financing is yet another example of our ability to take advantage of the attractive credit markets for our high-quality assets,” Wilbur Paes, executive vice president, CFO & treasurer of Paramount, said in a prepared statement. “Over the past two years, we have fortified our balance sheet and have not only reduced our weighted average borrowing costs by over 185 bps, but we also have no remaining debt maturities until the end of 2021.”

Paramount had engaged Eastdil Secured LLC to arrange the financing.

Paramount did not respond to Commercial Property Executive’s request for additional information.

Completed in 1988, the building was later certified as LEED Gold. Its current office tenants include Taubman, CVC Capital Partners, Riverstone, Loeb Enterprises and Aberdeen Asset Management. Retail tenants include Henri Bendel.

Paramount’s Recent Refi Deals

The 712 Fifth Ave. deal is just the latest in a string of substantial refinances of trophy buildings owned by Paramount.

In December 2015, Paramount, working through Eastdil Secured, refinanced its 2.6-million-square-foot Paramount Plaza tower at 1633 Broadway. The $1 billion, seven-year loan was made by German and U.S. lenders.

In October 2016, Paramount completed an $850 million refi of its 1.8-million-square-foot Class A building at 1301 Avenue of the Americas. The net proceeds from that five-year, interest-only loan were used to pay 2017 debt maturities at two other Manhattan buildings and to partially fund the acquisition of One Front St. in San Francisco.

And just this past January, Paramount completed a $975 million refi of One Market Plaza, a two-building office project in San Francisco. That fixed-rate loan (at 4.02 percent) replaced a previous loan at 6.12 percent.