Industry News

HIH Invest Real Estate GmbH (“HIH Invest”) just acquired a day nursery in Gelsenkirchen. The standing property will be added to the portfolio of the “Zukunft Invest” open-ended special AIF. It is a single-storey building with a lettable area of around 900 square metres that opened in 1994 and was expanded in 2012. The day nursery has a generously proportioned outdoor area on a plot of about 4,300 square metres. Lessee is the City of Gelsenkirchen on a fixed-term lease...

Global asset management firm Invesco has acquired a logistics warehouse facility in Helsingborg, Sweden, on behalf of a UK separate account client. Financial details were not disclosed. Invesco Real Estate handled the transaction, working with its local partner Scius. The asset, Grustaget 3, has been acquired in a sale-and-leaseback from Alpy AB. The tenant is Boxon Group, a packaging operator operating in the Nordics, Europe and Asia-Pacific. As part of the acquisition, Boxon Group has extended its lease by 15...

Global real estate investment management firm Heitman has announced the first close of its European value fund. The fund has a target fund size of EUR350 million and aims to aggregate a property portfolio with a focus on the alternative property sectors across Western Europe including opportunities in self-storage, rented-residential, senior housing, and student housing. Shortly after the closing, the fund made its first investment in a self-storage portfolio in the UK. ‘We are pleased with the closing of this...

Savills Investment Management has acquired three last-mile logistics facilities in Spain for a total of EUR95 million. The assets, which are all leased to Amazon, provide a total of 140,000 m2 of space in the cities of Murcia, Alicante and Valladolid. Savills Investment Management closed the acquisition, on behalf of its Vestas European Strategic Allocation Logistics Fund (VESALF I), from landlords Roebuck Asset Management and GFH Financial Group. The properties have an average rental period of 12.85 years and will...

Global real estate player Tishman Speyer has acquired Q207 at Friedrichstrasse 76-78, a landmark commercial property in central Berlin, from Allianz Real Estate, acting on behalf of several Allianz group companies. Financial details were not disclosed. The transaction was undertaken on behalf of Tishman Speyer’s TSEV VIII value-added fund and co-investment partners. The property in Berlin Mitte, known locally as Galeries Lafayette, occupies almost an entire block between Friedrichstrasse and Französischer Strasse. It is in close proximity to Q205 that...

Legal & General, on behalf of its LGIM Real Assets managed fund, has inked five deals totalling GBP150 million (EUR177 million) across the UK, in a range of asset classes. The mixed portfolio, including properties in the office, retail, leisure and industrial sectors, totals some 600,000 ft2 (55,750 m2). The acqusitions bring the total value of the fund to over GBP3 billion, and come off the back of increased flows into the fund. The purchase of 20,821 ft2 of offices...

AEW’s open-ended pan-European core fund has raised an additional EUR110 million from new and existing investors. The Eurocore fund has now reached EUR520 million since its EUR410 million first close in January last year. As previously reported, the Eurocore fund attracted Dutch investor Pensioenfonds Metaal en Techniek, a Swiss public pension, and a number of insurers, pension funds, family offices and corporates from France, Germany and Japan. The manager said the fund has so far invested EUR427 million across a...

AEW announces the appointment of Tim Sankey as Head of Separate Accounts in London. Tim has responsibility for managing the London office’s European separate account mandates on behalf of a number of international clients. Tim will lead AEW’s dedicated separate accounts team in London, which is focused on supporting clients in building large real estate investment portfolios across the UK and Europe. Tim has over 25 years’ experience within the real estate sector. Prior to joining AEW, he was Head...

Logicentres has made another key appointment. Its latest arrival is Mikael Hillsten who takes on the role of Manager Operation Development for Logicentres in Sweden. Mikael has extensive experience of business development within construction and property development companies, with his most recent post as Chief Operating Officer at the Wästbygg Group. The logistics property company is continuing to strengthen its position in the Nordic region with a key new appointment. Mikael Hillsten has joined the company in Sweden as Development...