HSBC has launched the presales process for a £750 million commercial mortgage-backed securitisation backed by Westfield Stratford City shopping centre in east London, one of Europe's largest malls, refinancing a prior CMBS.
S&P Global Ratings and Fitch have assigned credit ratings to the single-tranche fixed-rate notes to be issued by Westfield Stratford City Finance No.3 PLC.
The transaction is secured on the 2 million square feet of retail, food and beverage and leisure next to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Westfield Stratford was valued at £2.011 billion as of 31 March 2026.
The transaction will see a newly incorporated issuer on-lend the note proceeds to the borrower, Stratford City Shopping Centre (No1), through an issuer/borrower loan. The full proceeds of the loan will be used to repay in full an existing loan obligation connected to the existing Westfield Stratford City Finance No 2 CMBS transaction.
Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank is providing a liquidity facility while Mount Street is special servicer.
The property is ultimately owned through a joint venture between Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, Algemene Pensioen Groep and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, which have ownership stakes of 50%, 25%, and 25%, respectively. Westfield Europe, a subsidiary of URW, has been appointed as the asset manager.
S&P says occupancy at the the mall has been 94% or higher since 2014. The loan has low leverage, with the S&P Global Ratings estimating the loan-to-value ratio at 53.9%. On the same terms, but based on the appraiser's valuation, the LTV ratio is 37.3%.
There are 293 leases. No single tenant contributes more than 6% of the annual passing rent and the weighted-average unexpired lease term to break is 3.7 years. The estimated rental value is £142.8 million.
Westfield Stratford City opened in 2011 and was part of the large-scale regeneration of Stratford ahead of the 2012 London Olympics.
New CMBS issuance in Europe started 2026 well with three launches reported on by CoStar News by February, but has stalled since the Iran war began.
New European CMBS issuance soared in 2025 to €8.7 billion in 17 transactions across multiple sectors, against €2.2 billion in five transactions the previous year, to chalk up the highest annual volume by a distance for more than a decade, according to a report from Scope. That included €5.3 billion in the UK. Blackstone accounted for roughly 72% of European and 79% of UK issuance.