GLOBAL - Palmer Capital and Flemmings Financial Services have entered into a joint venture to buy quality investment stock across the UK in the £1m-10m range.
The fund has already completed its first deal with the acquisition of a Sainsbury's store in Tonbridge, Kent, let for 15 years at an RPI-linked rent for £1.35m (€1.5m), reflecting a net initial yield of 5.25%.
Meanwhile, AXA Real Estate Investment Managers has acquired the IBIS London City Hotel for £38.3m, on behalf of the Co-operative Insurance Society (CIS) from Mangrove Securities.
The IBIS London City Hotel, which is situated on 5 Commercial Street in the city of London, is expected to profit from the increased number of visitors during for the 2012 Olympic games.
The hotel is operated by hotel group Accor, which already operates 70 of the hotels within AXA Real Estate's managed portfolio.
Still in the UK, Quintain has sold its recently completed student accommodation scheme, Dashwood Studios, to Rockspring Property Investment Managers.
Dashwood Studios, which is located in Elephant & Castle in London, was sold for £34m.
It contains 232 high-quality studio rooms, multiple communal living spaces and retail units on the ground floor.
The entire scheme is let for the current academic year, and the retail units are under offer.
Quintain purchased the scheme in February 2011.
Moving to Germany, AXA Real Estate Investment Managers has acquired a class A-logistics warehouse in Niedersachsenpark, Germany, from HOCHTIEF Projektentwicklung.
The asset, which was developed by HOCHTIEF and completed in February 2009, is fully let to a global automotive business and is used as a spare-parts distribution centre.
The acquisition was undertaken on behalf of AXA Real Estate's specialist logistics fund, ELIV.
Launched in June 2007, this core and opportunistic fund currently has around €200m of assets under management across France, the Netherlands, Germany and Spain.
The acquisition of this logistics warehouse means ELIV is now fully invested.
In other news, Infrared Capital Partners, a recently formed joint venture with the German real estate company Art-Invest Real Estate, has acquired the Cologne Tower in Germany from EH Estate Management.
The transaction encompasses a 43-storey tower built in 2001, located in the Cologne 'MediaPark'.
BNP Paribas advised InfraRed Capital partners on the deal.
In Poland, IVG Warschau Fonds, an investment fund managed by IVG Institutional Funds, has acquired N21, a class-A office building situated in Warsaw's central business district.
The property is located at Nowogrodzka 21 and was acquired by IVG Warschau Fonds from SwedeCenter for €15m.
SwedeCenter, which is the Polish property development business of the Inter IKEA Group of companies, completed the development of N21 in 2008.
N21 also represents the fourth Warsaw office building acquisition of IVG for its various funds in the last 12 months and follows the purchase of the Victoria Building, BTC and Ujazdowskie 10.
Finally, outside Europe, Clarion Partners has acquired an apartment portfolio in an off-market transaction for $100m (€72m) in California.
The acquisition comprises three senior housing communities: Buena Vida at Town Center in Rancho Santa Margarita, Village on the Green in Rancho Cucamonga and Oak View.
