The special servicer division of German financier Eurohypo has received seven indicative cash bids for the Dutch Uni-Invest office portfolio and is moving forward to collect binding offers by mid-December.

The EUR 865 mln office portfolio in the Netherlands is facing a forced sale after the collapse in June of refinancing talks between Eurohypo and the bondholders of the Opera Finance CMBS facility underpinning the assets.

Eurohypo told PropertyEU on Thursday that it has yet to be seen how many investors will be invited to participate in phase II. Just six of the bids conformed to the phase I requirements.

The Opera securitisation was issued in 2005 but Uni-Invest ran into trouble after being forced to cancel an initial public offering on Euronext in 2007, due to 'adverse market conditions'. The IPO was designed to raise EUR 373 mln, which would have been used to repay part of the loan. Founded in 1924 Uni-Invest was listed in Amsterdam until 2003, a year after it was acquired by a consortium led by Lehman Brothers Real Estate Partners.

Uni-Invest owns a portfolio of 207 offices across the Netherlands valued at EUR 865 mln. Market sources say the portfolio, which is put at around 1.1 million m2, has a vacancy rate of about 20-40% and is expected to appeal to private equity funds and investors with an opportunistic profile. The assets will require significant capital expenditures to be revamped and anyone stepping in the deal would be looking at a high return.

Eurohypo provided a loan for the assets back in 2005 and put it in a CMBS facility called 'Opera Finance', which had an initial volume of over EUR 1 bn.

Eurohypo had been in talks with the bondholders and its advisers since Uni-Invest defaulted on a senior loan balance target in February 2011. Uni-Invest's EUR 752 mln debt load was already extended in February 2010, and it now comes to maturity in February 2012.

Cairn Capital is engaged as financial adviser.