Narrative
Full Description
Project narrative
In September 2016, a syndicate of three banks — the Bank of China (BOC), Barclays Bank Plc, and Morgan Stanley — entered into a $675 million USD syndicated loan agreement with Vornado Realty L.P. — a Delaware-incorporated limited partnership supermajority-owned by its general partner Vornado Realty Trust, a Maryland-incorporated real estate investment trust headquartered in New York City and listed on the New York Stock Exchange — for the Merchandise Mart 2016 Refinancing Project. This loan carried a maturity period of five years and was interest-only with a fixed interest rate of 2.7%. The proceeds were to be used by the borrower to refinance existing debt and closing costs and to provide the borrower with net proceeds of $124 million USD for the Merchandise Mart (MART), a 25-story art deco retail and office building with 3.6 million-square feet of space located in downtown Chicago, Illinois at 222 West Merchandise Mart Plaza in the River North neighborhood across two city blocks with office space, wholesale showrooms, and retail.
Staff comments
1. It is plausible, if not likely, that the specific borrowing institution was a special purpose vehicle subsidiary of Vornado Realty L.P. This issue merits further investigation. 2. The individual contributions of the three lenders to this $675 million USD syndicated loan are unknown. Therefore, for the time being, to estimate BOC's contribution, AidData has assumed that each lender contributed equally ($225,000,000 USD) to the loan syndicate.