Barings has invested €72m, on behalf of institutional investors, to buy a 6,185sqm office building in Sweden’s capital city for a value-add strategy.

The real estate investment manager said it has acquired Skvalberget 33 in Stockholm from BLDG Holding. The eight-storey building is fully let to four tenants.

Barings said it intends to upgrade parts of the building and has also identified the potential to increase the asset’s total lettable area.

This latest acquisition grows Barings’ portfolio in Scandinavia to approximately 170,000sqm across a range of sectors including offices, logistics, retail and residential, the manager said.

Gunther Deutsch, MD, head of real estate transactions – Europe at Barings, said: “While a large proportion of the world’s office staff have been working from home successfully over the last few months as a result of government-enforced lockdowns, we firmly believe that, for many reasons, offices will continue to play a vital role for all businesses, particularly in relation to fostering culture, improving collaboration and creativity, as well as nurturing and attracting talent.

“We believe that in a post-COVID-19 world demand will more than ever be focused on brand new or newly refurbished offices in CBD locations that offer flexibility of workspace, as well as strong technological and sustainability credentials.”

Deutsch said with feet on the ground in Barings’ target eight countries across Europe and €1bn of transactions currently in the pipeline ”we can thoroughly assess investment opportunities firsthand, allowing us to provide the speed and certainty of execution that are so important to vendors”.

Thorsten Slytå, MD, head of Scandinavia at Barings, said: “Given the fierce competition within the value-add segment, we are extremely proud to be able to source an off-market acquisition like this.

”Each year only a handful of assets are traded in the Eastern part of the central business district, the most attractive part of the city. Stockholm remains one of the world’s top cities for business, innovation and quality of life.”

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