Ashurst advised pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank on refinancing two real estate portfolios owned by subsidiaries of Deutsche Annington SE. The portfolios known as "Roosevelt" and "Wilson", consisting of c. 6,400 units, are part of a total of 18 sub-portfolios known as Deutsche Annington's "Grand" portfolio. pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank is providing Roosevelt and Wilson with €280 million in total.

The Ashurst team was led by Frankfurt-based finance partner Dr Stephan Kock and senior associate Derk Opitz. The team also included associate Denis Sattler, transaction manager Kerstin Sponer and paralegal Emilie Veyran (all finance). Tax aspects were covered by partner Heiko Penndorf (tax, Frankfurt).

The Grand portfolio comprised c. 200,000 real estate properties to the value of several billion euro. The liabilities incurred for the purchase were securitised in tradable securities in 2006. The Grand securitisation has been one of the largest securitised real estate financings (Commercial Mortgage Backed Securitisation CMBS) on the European market to date and was redeemed in full by Deutsche Annington in July 2013.

pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank (www.pfandbriefbank.com) is a specialist bank for commercial real estate finance and public investment finance.

Deutsche Annington Immobilien Group is one of the leading German residential real estate companies with c. 180,000 of its own residential units and 30,000 managed for third parties as well as c. 2,400 employees.