Tishman Speyer Dodges Foreclosure Bullet with $700M Recap of Metro D.C. Office Portfolio

June 11, 2010
By Barbra Murray, Contributing Editor

New York-based Tishman Speyer has recapitalized a 28-property Washington, D.C.-area office portfolio, owned in a partnership that includes Montréal-headquartered SITQ, to the tune of $700 million. The move was made in a nick of time, as foreclosure had been in the cards.

The group of premier assets features 6.3 million square feet of premier office space in Maryland, Northern Virginia and D.C. proper, including 155,000 square feet at 1775 Pennsylvania Avenue (pictured) just a block from the White House. The $700 million investment alleviates $600 million of partnership debt on the portfolio and provides working capital as well.

It was in late 2006 when the partnership, with Tishman Speyer at the helm, acquired the group of properties that had been owned by CarrAmerica Realty Corp. before the Blackstone Group acquired CarrAmerica in July 2006 for $5.6 billion. Tishman Speyer and partners paid $2.8 billion for the assets, relying partially on a financing package from Lehman Brothers. The financial services firm had supplied Tishman Speyer with $1.2 billion of senior debt, $923 million of bridge equity, a $355 million term loan and a $175 million revolver.

Regardless of where it began, Tishman’s debt obligation ended up with Toronto-based Brookfield Properties, which, as noted in the company’s first quarter earnings report, had acquired a 51 percent interest in what was a $590 million loan secured by the portfolio. In April of this year, as widely reported in the media, Brookfield commenced foreclosure proceedings. Close call.