Barings has paid €42.8m to buy a 48,000sqm logistics asset in Spain’s central capital.
The real estate investment manager – owned by US insurer MassMutual – said it has agreed a sale and leaseback deal to buy the logistics asset in Madrid on behalf of institutional investors.
The unnamed tenant, which has occupied the asset for over 17 years, will enter into a new 20-year lease, Barings said.
Barings has also acquired a plot of land adjacent to one of the existing units, which is already zoned for logistics and could accommodate up to 10,500sqm of additional warehouse space to facilitate the tenant’s future growth.
Adolfo Favieres, managing director, real estate country head Spain at Barings, said: “Favourable demographic drivers and rising e-commerce penetration continue to underpin the growth of the logistics market in Spain, a trend we expect to continue over the medium to long term.”
Favieres said the acquired asset is perfectly aligned to the company’s core investment strategy, offering long and sustainable income from a ”good covenant, with a tenant that has heavily invested in these assets which are key to their operations in Spain”.
Gunther Deutsch, managing director, head of real estate transactions – Europe for Barings, said after acquiring a speculative logistics development in Ontigola in 2019, this represents the company’s fourth acquisition in Spanish logistics, of which three have been for the company’s core strategy.
“We are very experienced in structuring sale and leaseback transactions with owner-occupiers which we have demonstrated already in Germany, Italy and now Spain.
“We continue to have a lot of appetite for single logistics asset transactions, as well as pan-European portfolios, in our focused markets of Finland, Sweden, Netherlands, UK, Germany, Italy, France and Spain across the risk spectrum from core to opportunistic.”
