Internos Real Investors said on Wednesday that it has been appointed as fund and asset manager of Merchant Place Property Partnership 51B (MP51B), which owns 17 retail assets in Germany valued at around EUR 70 mln.

Internos will also be the strategic property adviser for Merchant Place Property Partnership 51 (MP51), which owns seven German retail assets with a combined value of EUR 98 mln.

Internos won the mandate for MP51B, which had breached a loan-to-value covenant, having reached an in principle agreement to extend the bank's funding facilities from 2011 to 2013. Terms of the extension allow for a planned disposal of certain assets, already optimised for sale, and the retention of other assets where effective asset management could provide an eventual upside for the fund's investors over the longer term.

For MP51, Internos was appointed to provide a review of fund strategy and the asset management options for the portfolio after the general partner had agreed with the lending bank, Bank of Scotland, to use some of the fund's built-up surplus cash to reduce the loan to its covenanted level of 75%. The loan-to-value covenant tightened from 78% at the end of 2010, but there is no further tightening during the term of the loan.

'We are delighted to have been appointed on these mandates, which play to our strengths of local asset management expertise in Germany,' said Andrew Thornton, Chief Executive of Internos. 'We now manage 115 retail assets in Germany and the knowledge this brings should help us to enhance value, to develop a deeper working relationship with the lender and also to gain the trust of the 110 IFAs representing investors' interests in these fund vehicles.'