EUROPE – CBRE Global Investors has sold a Frankfurt office tower for €240m for a client and ploughed the proceeds into two higher-yielding commercial properties in Italy and France.
The real estate investment company said it completed the sale of the office building Westend Duo, one of the highest towers in Frankfurt’s business district, on behalf of one of its separate account clients, having bought the block in 2006.
The buyer was Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management.
Money from the sale was reinvested in the 20,996sqm gallery within the Carrefour Limbiate shopping centre in the north of Milan for around €140m, as well as a logistics building in Pusignan in France for €11.25m, CBRE Global Investors said.
The series of deals is part of an active management strategy for the client, focusing on increasing the direct return and diversifying the portfolio across Europe, it said.
John Ozinga, the firm’s head of separate accounts for Continental Europe, said: “The new investments in high-yielding assets highlight that there is a range of attractive opportunities available across Continental Europe as a whole.”
The Westend Duo building currently gives a gross market yield of around 5%.
The gallery of the Milan shopping centre is 97% let to high-quality retailers such as MediaWorld, H&M and Piazza Italia, and has a net yield of about 7.1%, the investment manager said.
The French logistic building is 14,676sqm in size and let to logistics providers Panalpina and Geodis.
The purchase price means a net yield of 8.1%, it said.
CBRE Global Investors said it has more retail and logistic investments under offer for the client in Italy and Germany.
These deals are expected to complete in the first quarter of this year.
