ITALY
The famous Hotel Bauer Palazzo in Venice has a new owner.
SIGNA Prime signed the relevant contracts with the US investment firm Elliott at the turn of the year and the closing has now taken place. The parties have agreed not to disclose the purchase price.
Christoph Stadlhuber, Chief Executive Officer of SIGNA, the flagship of the SIGNA Group, says, “With the acquisition of the historic Hotel Bauer Palazzo in an absolutely prime location in Venice, we have added another unique property to SIGNA Prime’s portfolio and are further expanding our market position as a leading European real estate company.
“Elliott is delighted to complete the sale of the legendary Hotel Bauer Palazzo to its new owners SIGNA Prime. This marquee transaction against the backdrop of the current Covid-19 crisis showcases the strength of the hotel’s operation and the potential for future growth. Elliott continues to own the Giudecca asset of the Bauer Hotel group.”
Important economic and tourism region
SIGNA is also taking over the 210-room Hotel Bauer Palazzo operation, which will be continued from the beginning of July at the latest, after the closure due to the Covid-19 virus. Heinz Hager of SIGNA Italy says, “This long-term commitment serves as a signal of our confidence in Venice and Italy. Northern Italy is one of Europe’s most important economic and tourist regions.”
The Hotel Bauer on the Grand Canal, a short walk from St. Mark’s Square, first opened its doors to guests in 1880. The owners at that time were entrepreneur, Julius Grünwald, and his wife. After Grünwald’s death, the hotel was sold to the Italian Benatti family in 1930. The hotel was expanded continuously over the decades that followed.
The SIGNA Group, founded by Austrian entrepreneur René Benko in 1999, is a privately owned investment company with a focus on the real estate, retail and media sectors. It is one of Europe’s leading real estate investors with a portfolio of unique assets in prime locations.
With a current project volume of €12 billion spanning 10 locations in Austria, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Luxembourg, the SIGNA Group is one of the most significant real estate developers.
SIGNA Real Estate focuses on sustainable urban development, future-oriented utilisation concepts and unique architecture.
Source: https://www.signa.at/en/news/signa-prime-acquires-legendary-hotel-bauer-in-venice/
London warehouse estate bought for £202.5m
UNITED KINGDOM
SEGRO plc has acquired Perivale Park, a 34-acre urban warehouse estate in Perivale, West London, from Federated Hermes for £202.5 million.
The estate is alongside the A40 main road into Central London and within two miles of the North Circular Road, making it perfectly located for distribution into London. It is also adjacent to Perivale Underground Station allowing easy access for workers and locals.
The estate provides 55,100 square meters of lettable space across 23 units and eight acres of land, which is currently leased as a vehicle compound but has medium-term development potential.
Perivale Park is fully let with a WAULT of 3.4 years to break and 5.5 years to expiry. It generates a topped-up passing rent of £6.8 million, reflecting a low average in-place rent of approximately £10 per square foot with an ERV of £12.50 per square foot (excluding the rent for the land). This compares to current market rents in the region of £15 to £20 per square foot in SEGRO’s £1.5 billion portfolio of estates in Park Royal and Greenford. Reflecting these low current rental levels, the topped-up net initial yield (excluding the land) upon acquisition is 3.5% and the equivalent yield is 4.3%.
Perfect fit
Alan Holland, Business Unit Director for SEGRO’s Greater London portfolio, says, “Perivale Park is a perfect fit for SEGRO, sitting adjacent to the A40 and nestled between our core holdings in Greenford and Park Royal. It offers a rare opportunity to build further scale and drive value in an area where we already have considerable expertise and knowledge of the local market and customer base. It also offers medium-term development and redevelopment potential in one of London’s prime, and most supply-constrained, industrial clusters.”
SEGRO was advised by Altus Property Services. ACRE Capital Real Estate acted on behalf of Federated Hermes.
SEGRO is a UK Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), and a leading owner, manager and developer of modern warehouses and light industrial property. It owns or manages 7.8 million square metres of space (84 million square feet) valued at £11.7 billion at 31 December 2019. Its assets are positioned strategically at locations in the UK and across London and the South-East and Midlands regions, while in Continental Europe it has developments in France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, The Netherlands and the Czech Republic.
Federated Hermes is a leading global investment manager with $575.9 billion in assets under management as of the end of 2019.
Source: https://www.segro.com/media/press-releases/2020/08-06-2020
Mixed-use office deal in Aachen
GERMANY
Warburg-HIH Invest Real Estate GmbH has acquired the newbuild office and retail complex Pick-up at Quartier Nord in Aachen.
The six-storey building was acquired on behalf of the Deutschland Selektiv Immobilien Invest II open-ended special property fund. The fund invests in “core / core plus” office properties in selected German growth cities.
An add-on option permits investments into other types of use up to a limit of 30% of the total assets. Assuming a minimum fund volume of €400 million and a gearing ratio of no more than 50% on the fund level, the distribution yield is expected to be 4%. Institutional investors can buy into the fund by acquiring equity interests of €5 million or more.
The property development at Krefelder Strasse 128 in Aachen provides more than 5,000 square metres of office and restaurant space along with 73 parking spots. The property was built by Landmarken AG and completed on schedule. The multi-tenant property is already fully let.
The main tenant with an occupied share of 73% of the gross lettable area is COGNEX, a globally operating specialist for machine vision readers, on a long-term lease for more than 10 years. The restaurant unit is let to Burger King for a 20-year term.
Other tenants in the building include a physical therapy centre, also on a lease term of more than ten years.
It was agreed not to disclose the selling price.
Excellent performance
Alexander Eggert, Managing Director of Warburg-HIH Invest says, “With the Deutschland Selektiv Immobilien Invest II investment fund, we pick up where we left off with its fully-placed precursor fund. We managed to achieve an excellent performance on behalf of our investors with our fund concept and consider the investment strategy to be just as auspicious going forward. Accordingly, we decided to launch another fund of the same type but without a maturity cap.
“With the acquisition of the Pick-up, we are adding a property occupied by high-net-worth tenants on long-term leases to the fund.”
It is intended to secure a DGNB Gold certification for the building.
The Pick-up scheme was created as part of the Quartier Nord locality the Landmarken is developing between the inner city of Aachen and the A4 motorway.
The town centre is eight minutes and the A4 motorway four minutes away by car. Direct access to the B57 federal route further enhances the excellent transport connectivity.
By 2030, the Quartier Nord development will have created a total of 48,500 square metres in mixed-use properties, along with parking facilities.
The legal and tax due diligences for the buyer side were conducted by Ashurst LLP in Frankfurt am Main.
The technical due diligence was done by Schwab (SCHWAB.engineers Projektmanagement GmbH) based in Hamburg.
Warburg-HIH Invest is one of the leading investment managers for real estate in Germany and Europe. It currently manages assets with a volume of more than EUR 11.3 billion across 71 funds.
