Finnish pensions insurer Varma has sold half its stake in logistics and industrial property investment company Certeum to Tungsten Investment, a company affiliated with the Blackstone Real Estate Partners Europe IV fund.
Varma sold 50% of its shares in Certeum, leaving it with a 19.5% stake, putting the investment below the 20% threshold to be counted as one of its affiliate companies.
Although the parties did not disclose the value of the deal, Finnish real estate investment firm Sponda made a concurrent sale of its 38% stake in Certeum to Tungsten Investment, which it declared as bringing in around €190m.
Assuming equal terms with Sponda, Varma would have received approximately €97.5m from its sale.
Reima Rytsölä, director of investments at Varma, told IPE: “The reason for sale was that we want to further diversify our real estate portfolio geographically, and this was a natural way to divest Finnish exposure.”
Certeum has property assets valued at €895.6m, with a leasable area of around 1.3m square metres, as of the end of June 2015.
Varma, Sponda, the State Pension Fund (VER), Sponda Fund I, Sponda Fund II and Sponda Fund III co-founded the company in 2014.
When Certeum was first set up, Varma sold 22 logistics and industrial properties into it.
Certeum started operations in September 2014 and specialises in owning, leading and developing logistics and industrial properties, mainly located in Finland’s largest cities.
