EUROPE - Pramerica Real Estate Investors has entered into a joint venture with Panattoni Europe to develop a portfolio of as much as €100m of logistics warehouses in Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia.
The joint venture has been seeded with a pre-leased, 32,000 square metre asset in Poland and is pursuing three additional Polish assets totalling in excess of 45,000 square metres.
Both parties will target new developments with a minimum area of approximately 10,000 square meters, which will be at least 50% pre-let before construction starts.
The joint venture will invest over a period of 18 months, and a minimum of 65% of its total assets will be in Poland.
Pramerica and Panattoni have come together to take advantage of continuing demand from occupiers for prime logistics space in central and eastern Europe (CEE) - and Poland in particular - as well as growing investor demand for this type of product in the region.
It is Pramerica's second joint venture with Panattoni in Poland. The two companies have developed 11 buildings together to date, totalling around 241,000 square meters of prime industrial space in the country.
Max Kreuter, portfolio manager at Pramerica Real Estate Investors, said: "We are pleased to be able to further develop our successful logistics investment strategy with Panattoni, which is well known for building and leasing high-quality logistics space.
"The creation of this joint venture will allow us to access the growing demand for logistics space in Poland and CEE."
Robert Dobrzycki, managing partner for central Europe at Panattoni, said: "The new JV partnership underlines both the success of our past cooperation with Pramerica, as well as Panattoni Europe's reliability as a partner that has been able to continuously grow its operations, regardless of the economic crisis.
"With Pramerica, we plan to develop a large number of new projects, which are mostly build-to-suit investments, but may include a speculative element."
