Weekly Data Sheet - 16 May 2025

French office and residential real estate investment trust Gecina returned to the acquisition trail in the office sector this week with the purchase of a major Paris central business district asset for €435m.

The deal – Gecina’s first large office investment in several years – sees the landlord take control of 32,200sqm of largely vacant office space at 19-23, rue de Vienne and 38-46, rue du Rocher, also known as Le Solstys.

The complex was put on the market in 2023 by its owner, the Deka Immobilien Europa open-ended fund, which in turn had bought it in 2011 for €330m from developer and former tenant Nexity.

Gecina said the asset offers “a near-term opportunity to create value through an estimated 12 to 15-month refurbishment programme”, for a planned investment of €30–40m. It is the first major office investment for the French office landlord since the takeover of Eurosic in 2017.  

“This acquisition aligns with Gecina’s strategy to redeploy proceeds from mature assets,” said the company, which completed roughly €2bn of disposals in 2023 and 2024 at an average yield of 2.9%.

Gecina’s office portfolio performed strongly last year with rental growth reaching 6.6% on a like-for-like basis, largely thanks to indexation.

A number of other major transactions were put to bed this week, in a sign of rising deal activity in Europe. They include Hammerson taking control of London’s Brent Cross shopping centre; King Street Capital Management investing €400m in the Southern European urban lifestyle hospitality platform Room00 and, last but not least, Brookfield tapping into Europe’s rising travel and tourism sector with the purchase of Generator Hostels for €776m.

In the fund section, three vehicles launched or raised equity this week, also signalling a return of stronger fundraising activity.

French asset manager Ampere Gestion raised €325m from six institutional investors in the first round of funding for Fonds de Logement Intermédiaire III, a vehicle focused on affordable homes across France.

The PIMCO European Data Centre Opportunity Fund received €200m in new commitments from the European Investment fund and CPD Equity, an Italian majority state-owned Italian sovereign wealth fund. The fund is dedicated to the development of new data centres in high growth European markets, including Madrid, Milan, Berlin, Zurich, Warsaw, Marseille and Athens.