Aberdeen acquires prime logistics building in Finland

Aberdeen Property Investors' European Balanced Property Fund has acquired a prime logistics property, near Helsinki-Vantaa airport, from Finland's EKE Group, the developer and builder of the property. The financial details of this transaction were not disclosed.

The premises were built in phases in 2005 and 2008 and comprise of 31,000 m² of leasable space. The principle tenant is Suomen Logistiikkatalo, Finland's leading logistics company.

Nico Tates, fund manager of the Aberdeen European Balanced Property Fund, said: 'During these uncertain times our strategy is to focus only on top quality investments with strong covenants. This property combines an attractive yield and projected rental growth in Finnish logistics with a long lease from a strong tenant. Equally, we were able to secure mortgage financing at a competitive rate despite the credit squeeze, so we are very pleased with this transaction.'

Antti Tikkanen, CFO of EKE Group, said: 'This sale was part of our property development strategy. Our target is to develop and upgrade premises according to our tenants' needs and to make them tempting to the solvent investor. From the start, we developed these premises with the current tenant in mind and for the needs of similar major logistics service providers.'

Aberdeen's European Balanced Property Fund invests in property in Finland, Belgium, France, and The Netherlands. The fund, which targets a size of EUR 1.5bn, has EUR 242 mln of committed equity with a placing power of EUR 484 mln.