King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) has advised MaxCap group and AustralianSuper as the sole debt funder of Rio Tinto's new office development in Brisbane.
Under a Fender Katsalidis design the new Midtown Centre in the CBD, which is being developed by Ashe Morgan Group and DMann Corporation, will combine two existing towers to develop 45,000 square metres of office space. The approach utilises existing buildings whose floorplan is too small for the demands of larger organisations.
Being greater than $360 million, the deal is possibly the largest single hold for development finance ever in Australia and is as a significant step for non-bank lenders who are filling the funding gap that has arisen in commercial real estate debt in Australia.
The KWM team was led by leading real estate finance Partner, Jonathan Oldham. Jonathan was supported by Senior Associate, Andrew Barrett, Solicitors, Stuart Alexander and Danny Ke and Graduate, Jeremy Tan.
Commenting on the transaction, Jonathan said: "We are pleased to have advised MaxCap and AustralianSuper on this landmark deal. The substantial value of the debt is all the more significant given the parties were able to complete the deal in such a short timeframe.
"We are seeing significant appetite and more transactions than ever involving non-bank lenders providing debt funding solutions for commercial and residential real estate development. This is a significant change from traditional development funding which has historically been dominated by the big banks."
The Brisbane development is currently underway and is expected to be completed in mid-2021. KWM has a market-leading real estate finance team who act for a large number of non-bank and bank lenders in residential, commercial and industrial development.
