Goldman Sachs is reported to have won the bidding to provide a $300 million loan to The Mills Corp. for its $435 million purchase of the Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance, Calif, according to sister publication Real Estate Finance & Investment. Goldman had a leg up as it marketed the massive property on behalf of seller Guilford Glazer. Officials at the Arlington, Va.-based real estate investment trust were in Spain for the opening of Madrid Xanadu and could not be reached while David Douglass, director of corporate communications at Mills did not return calls. Officials at Goldman also did not return calls for comment.
Goldman has a prior relationship with Mills and provided a portion of the financing for its $621 million of Cadillac Fairview last December. Goldman's prowess in the CMBS market also played a role in Mills' decision to tap the investment bank in lieu of a traditional bank, lenders said. About 400,000 square feet of the three million-square-foot property needs to be redeveloped, requiring a construction loan with the reminder to be securitized. "The expectation is that the loan will use the A-B structure," one banker familiar with the deal said. In the A-B structure, issuers securitize the senior portions of a loan while placing the junior portions privately. EuroHypo, Wells Fargo Bank and Royal Bank of Canada were the other banks who pitched for the business, (REFI, 5/12). Officials at EuroHypo declined to comment while officials at Goldman, Wells Fargo and RBC did not return calls. Del Amo Fashion Center is the largest mall in the Western United States and the second largest in the country.