Clifford Chance advised Bank of America Merrill Lynch on its purchase of a commercial real estate loan portfolio from HSH Nordbank.

The volume of the portfolio comprising loans for commercial real estate in Scandinavia, the Netherlands and Germany is EUR 540 million. With this sale HSH Nordbank is fulfilling a requirement of the EU Commission, which demands that the bank be sold or wound-up by 2018. Before that, however, the bank must sell outstanding loans with a nominal volume of EUR 3.2 billion. The transaction is still subject to approval by the cartel authorities. It is expected that the sale will be completed in the second quarter of 2017.

The Clifford Chance team led by partner Dr. Oliver Kronat (Banking and Capital Markets) comprised partner Dr. David Elshorst (Real Estate, both Frankfurt), partner Marc Besen (Brussels/Düsseldorf) and associate Caroline Slusarek (Düsseldorf, both Antitrust), partner Emma Matebalavu (Finance, London), senior associate Hannes Deusch, associate Dr. Constantin Draack, associate Dr. Dorian Legel (all Banking and Capital Markets, Frankfurt) and associate Andrew Grant (Finance, London) as well as partner Dr. Felix Mühlhäuser and counsel Dr. Marie-Theres Rämer (both Tax, Frankfurt).