Denmark’s largest commercial pension fund PFA has formed a joint venture with industrial ports operator ADP to develop a dry port.

The long-term logistics investment relates to ADP’s port in Taulov, Fredericia, on the east coast of Denmark’s Jutland peninsula.

The two companies have formed a joint venture that will involve an estimated investment of between DKK1.5bn and DKK2.0bn (€200-269m) over the next 10 years,

ADP will have 51% ownership of the venture, PFA said.

Michael Bruhn, PFA’s head of real estate, said: “This is the first investment of its kind for PFA, and it supports our strategy of coming into larger projects early on, in real estate, for example, so we can help to influence developments even more.”

He said the joint venture agreement was in line with PFA’s focus on investing more in logistics properties – an area rendered attractive by the e-commerce megatrend.

“We believe that this investment will be very positive for the development of Fredericia and the Triangle area while contributing to attractive returns for our pension customers,” he said.

The Triangle area refers to the Danish cities of Kolding, Vejle and Fredericia and their surroundings.

The dry port will involve a transport and logistics centre in the backland area of Fredericia Port.

ADP owns and operates the Danish ports of Nyborg, Middelfart and Fredericia and has been developing the Taulov Transport Centre since 2014.

PFA said its involvement would add further momentum to the large logistics project of developing the transport centre into Taulov Dry Port, which it said would become Denmark’s new transport and logistics centre.

In the joint venture’s first investment, the partnership has bought a plot of commercial land of around 500,000sqm next to the railway in Taulov for a nine-figure sum, PFA said.

Bruhn said PFA’s incentive to become an investor and financial partner in the development was partly the project’s central location in the administrative area of Southern Denmark.

The opportunity was also attractive because of ADP’s strategy for developing a multimodal transport and logistics centre, where modern offices and warehouses with direct access to all modes of transport could be built over the next few years, he added.

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