Aberdeen buys €60m Brussels office scheme from Cofinimmo

Belgian REIT Cofinimmo has sold the company owning the Livingstone II office building in the European district of Brussels to Aberdeen Property Investors' European Balanced Property Fund.

The transaction price amounted to around €60 mln, plus nearly €4 mln of debt, reflecting a gross yield of 4.28%.

The owner of the asset renovated the building after its tenant, Belfius Insurance, left in 2011. It completed the full renovation of the building in 2014. The asset offers an above-ground surface area of 16,000 m2 over six floors and is let to the European Commission with 15 years remaining on the lease.

'The sale of the shares of the company Livingstone II and the repositioning of the entire site perfectly illustrate our strategy in the office segment, which consists in rotating assets on the one hand, and in redeveloping our buildings on the other hand, in order to better respond to the space-planning needs of each district,' said CEO Jean-Edouard Carbonnelle.

Cofinimmo was exclusively advised by JLL. Baker & McKenzie acted as legal adviser to Aberdeen, Axxio as technical surveyor and Deloitte for tax and financial advice.