Commerz Real buys €2.5bn Millennium Portfolio from Generali

Commerz Real has agreed its biggest ever real estate deal with the acquisition of a German portfolio of 49 assets from Generali Lebensversicherung.

IPE Real Assets understands that the manager, on behalf of its open-ended real estate fund Hausinvest, paid more than €2.5bn to buy the Millennium Portfolio.

The Millennium Portfolio comprises 26 office, 14 residential and 9 retail trading properties with a total leasable area of more than 352,000sqm in inner-city locations in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg, Cologne, Munich and Stuttgart, as well as in Giessen, Leipzig and Unterhaching.

Andreas Muschter, CEO of Commerz Real, said: “We were able to acquire this portfolio, which is quite unique in terms of its quality, for our investors because we made optimum use of our strengths.

“It was a question of acting quickly, in a professional, focussed and reliable manner, in order to rapidly offer the seller transaction security. We will continue to keep Hausinvest open for new investors for precisely such opportunities.”

Henning Koch, global head of transactions at Commerz Real, said: “Ultimately we were able to assert our bid in a very competitive process.

“The portfolio is perfectly geared to our investment strategy of increasing the share of German properties in the fund and in doing so achieving the best possible mix of all usage types.”

Fund manager Mario Schüttauf said the acquisition will stabilise Hausinvest’s yield.

”The objective is, above all, to hold on to the more than 1,000 apartments in the long term. We intend to reassure the tenants, and also the municipal authorities and local councils, and give them the necessary security that there will not now be measures to maximise the short-term profitability.

”Moreover, the residential properties mean there is now a significant increase in the residential share of the fund.”

Commerz Real is now moving significantly closer to its declared goal of investing around two billion euros in the residential sector in the next four years, Schüttauf said.