Bayerische Versorgungskammer (BVK) has invested in an Australian office tower through CBRE Global Investors and Universal-Investment.

The German pension fund for self-employed professionals bought the South Wharf office tower in Melbourne.

CBRE GI, which was awarded a global mandate by BVK in late 2013, said the deal was the manager’s first direct deal in Australia, having made indirect investments through CBRE Clarion Securities and CBRE Global Investment Partners.

Open-ended real estate fund Deka-Immobilien Global sold the property for an undisclosed amount.

Andrew Glass, managing director of CBRE Global Investors in Australia, said client demand to invest in Australia “continues to be strong, consistent with our research view that domestic real estate markets will outperform on a global, risk-adjusted basis”.

The 21,000sqm building, part of a larger mixed-use project, is fully occupied. Deka Immobilien bought the property in 2010.

Alexander Tannenbaum, managing director at Universal-Investment, said German institutional investors are ”still internationalising their real estate allocations”.

“The Asian Pacific area is next to US, currently one of the preferred real estate markets abroad,” he said, stressing that around 40% of the roughly €4.5bn in real estate assets administered through Universal-Investment’s platform are outside Germany.

LaSalle Investment Management bought for BVK in Australia for the first time last year, investing in a shopping centre in Melbourne for BVK, which awarded a €500m global real estate mandate to LaSalle in 2013.

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