EUROPE - Invesco Real Estate has bought a Prague office building for a fund it manages on behalf of Germany's €53bn Bayerische Versorgungskammer (BVK).
It is the third property/infrastructure deal to be announced by the Versorgungswerk - the collective scheme for self-employed professionals like doctors, lawyers and architects in Bavaria - within just a few weeks.
Daniel Just, head of asset management, told IPE: "In the current market environment and with a possible preparation for inflation scenarios, we want to get our hands on real assets - and property is helping with that."
He added that it was becoming difficult to find good value in core markets as the demand for such properties was quite high.
"So we had to think up intelligent ways to get to real estate at good prices," he said.
One of these was to provide outside financing for a property purchase like the BVK first did in the Silberturm deal in Frankfurt.
Another was an individual Spezialfonds in which the BVK invested more in satellite locations, or, as Just put it, "those regions that have not been completely sucked dry".
The iii-BVK Europa-Immobilien-Spezialfonds, which Invesco Real Estate has managed for the BVK since 2000, currently has a fund volume of around €650m.
The Prague office building is part of the Futurama Business Park, which is registered for the BREEAM certificate for sustainable building and is expected to get the highest mark.
This fits with the BVK's commitment to the UNPRI, which it signed earlier this year.
Tenants in the building include Deutsche Börse subsidiary Clearstream and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries.
Bettina Knirsch, director of fund management at Invesco Real Estate, said the Czech Republic might become a "safe investment haven" given the ongoing uncertainty surrounding the euro-zone.
She added: "Our current market view is that the Central and Eastern European market will develop well over the next five years."
