GE Real Estate has bought a €1.3bn (£1.04bn) portfolio of discounted commercial property loans in the UK and Germany from Capmark Europe as it takes advantage of continuing difficulties in the debt markets.

Capmark would normally have packaged and sold the loans on the commercial mortgage-backed securities market, but paralysis in that sector has allowed GE to secure a discounted price to buy the loans from the real estate lender. The deal is rumoured to have been carried out at a discount of as much as 8 per cent across two portfolio deals at the beginning of April and on Wednesday, although no party would confirm the figure.