Ilmarinen nets €190m in sale of key Helsinki office building to Deka

Ilmarinen, Finland’s largest real estate investor, is selling a prominent office property in Helsinki’s central business district (CBD) to Deka Immobilien for €190m.

The pensions insurance company said the sale of the “landmark” office building was the biggest single office transaction ever completed in Finland.

The property, Töölönlahdenkatu 3, is located next to the central railway station in the Finnish capital.

The building had been owned by Etera, the smaller pensions insurer that merged into the larger Ilmarinen at the beginning of the year.

Kenneth Nyman, portfolio manager for commercial real estate at Ilmarinen, said that, since 2009, Etera had developed the Töölönlahti area of the city into a “significant, highly modern and sought-after office area”, helping expand Helsinki’s CBD to the north.

“After having completed the development and having fully let the property at Töölönlahdenkatu 3, Ilmarinen decided to sell its second holding in the area,” he said.

“Despite this sizeable sale, Ilmarinen will continue to be an active owner and investor in the Helsinki CBD market.”

Deka said it would place the asset in its WestInvest InterSelect open-ended real estate fund.

“With this second investment in Finland, the fund management of WestInvest InterSelect is expanding the portfolio’s allocation to Scandinavia in line with its strategy, with a centrally-located core real estate asset, which will secure a long-term stable cashflow for the fund,” the German firm said.

The property was completed in 2014, has gross lettable space of around 15,800sqm and LEED Gold certification, Ilmarinen said.

It is fully occupied with 14 tenants. It acts as the Finnish headquarters for KMPG, which is leading the tenant and occpies 60% of the bulding. Other tenants include Barona Group, Electronic Arts and Nokian Renkaat.

When Ilmarinen and Etera merged, Etera had a higher allocation to real estate than Ilmarinen, at close to 20%. Ilmarinen’s exposure was below 15%, although it has had a long-term objective of increasing its allocation to real assets.