THE struggling Goodman Group sold another European asset yesterday, for almost $68 million, bringing its sales in Europe this month to nearly $170 million.
The latest asset sold is Parc Mail, comprising 12 office buildings totalling almost 22,000sqm, at Lyon, in the south of France.
The Goodman European Business Park Fund bought the asset in December 2004, for Goodman Group.
Goodman had sold two other assets, one in France and the other in Germany, for $101 million last week.
Chief executive Greg Goodman said prime assets in the market in which Goodman was operating around the world were showing "signs of resilience".
There would be continuous asset rotation in the normal course of business, he said.
On Tuesday, Goodman signed a $300 million facility underpinned by Macquarie Bank to repay all of its 2009 debt expiries. The first of four parts of a tranche of $1.9 billion is due to mature this weekend.
"We are working diligently on May 2010 maturity," Mr Goodman said. "A year is a long time in the property business at the moment."
Goodman remains a highly geared trust, which would need to address its debt problems with asset sales or equity infusions over the medium term, writes Deutsche Bank equity analyst Ian Randall.
Goodman is in discussions with foreign lenders to extend the facilities to provide incremental liquidity and it is negotiating with a foreign investor to inject capital on the same terms as Macquarie Group.
JPMorgan analyst Richard Jones estimated Goodman was about "$300 million short for its May 10 expiry".
In his research note, Mr Jones said Goodman would need to sell assets, refinance debt or get additional capital injections to cover the next debt maturity.
The best medium-term outcome appeared to be privatisation, he said. The main impediment to that was a change in control provisions on the debt.
"Maybe this provision can be negotiated with further capital injections," Mr Jones wrote.
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