Apollo CRE unit closes $50m mezz loan

The New York headquartered investor Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance (ARI) has closed a $50 million mezzanine loan, it said in a statement.

The floating-rate loan was secured by the equity interest in a portfolio of 167 wholly-owned skilled nursing facilities across 19 US states and refinanced an existing $47 million mezzanine loan ARI acquired in 2013.

ARI said it realised an internal rate of return (IRR) of approximately 12 percent on the repaid loan.

The new loan has a two-year initial term, three one-year extension options and an underwritten loan-to-value of 62 percent, underwritten to generate an IRR of roughly 12 percent.

ARI has committed to invest in more than $645 million of commercial real estate loan transactions and commercial mortgage backed securities (CMBS) so far this year.

The firm also said it had completed the syndication of a $90 million senior participation of a $155 million whole loan secured by a resort hotel in Aruba, which the firm acquired last month. ARI retained the $65 million junior participation.

Last week, it announced it had completed two commercial real estate loan transactions totalling $93.4 million and acquired a legacy CMBS formerly rated AAA with an aggregate purchase price of $50.2 million.

Commenting on the transactions at the time, Scott Weiner (pictured), ARI chief investment officer, said: “ARI has had a really strong start in the first six months of 2014 with respect to capital deployment. We believe the company continues to identify well structured transactions which offer attractive, risk adjusted returns and our pipeline remains robust.”