Union Investment is investing around €137m in a forward funding deal to buy a hotel project in Germany.

The Hamburg-based real estate investment manager is buying Turm am Mailänder Platz in Stuttgart’s Europa district from Strabag Real Estate. Completion is planned for December 2021.

The manager said the asset is being acquired for the open-ended Unilmmo Deutschland real estate fund.

Andreas Löcher, head of investment management hospitality at Union Investment, said: “The hotel investment markets are slowly re-emerging. The pandemic has passed its peak, so now is the perfect time for us to re-enter the market, enabling us to secure a strong position.

“We are planning to expand our high-quality portfolio of some 80 hotels and are focusing on core products with resilient concepts and operators. In this context, we consider the premium budget segment and apartment hotels to be particularly interesting.”

Axel Möhrle, head of Strabag Real Estate’s Stuttgart division, said: “With Union Investment, we have been able to attract a strong and reliable investor for our project, who places greater emphasis on the long-term stability of the core property in a prime location than on the temporarily difficult market environment.”

Real estate services provider CBRE brokered the deal for Strabag Real Estate.

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