Abu Dhabi SWF buys €750m Docks Lyonnais assets

Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) is buying Les Docks Lyonnais, the owner of a €750 mln property portfolio in France, from UBS Wealth Management.

According to news website Costar, the deal has been finalised for a price of €670 mln, reflecting a 10% discount to the assets' value.

According to filings made with the French competition commission, the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund is acquiring Les Docks Lyonnais through its European investment arm Tamweelview European Holdings, in what is one of France's largest commercial real estate deals this year.

UBS declined to comment on the deal. Docks Lyonnais was not immediately available for comment.

The portfolio includes a total of five assets comprising a 24,000 m2 office block at 6-8 Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement of Paris currently let to the French bank BPI as its headquarters. Other assets are a 65,000 m2 Capitole office block in Nanterre, a 19,000 m2 business park in Antony, in the southern suburbs of Paris, as well as some retail units in Lyon's Grolée district.

UBS Asset Management was looking for a quick sale as the funds that own Docks Lyonnais were due for termination at the end of the year. The properties had been acquiring before the financing crisis for a total investment representing around €900 mln.

The acquisition would be the third real estate deal by sovereign wealth fund ADIA in France, following the purchase at end-2012 of a portfolio of offices in Lyon for €310 mln and the acquisition of an office building at Boulevard Pasteur in Paris for €252 mln.

In November 2012, the fund also concluded the largest multi-let asset trade in Belgium since 2008 with the purchase of the Zuiderpoort complex in Ghent, Belgium for around €110 mln. The deal is understood to reflect a yield of 10%.

The 63,000-m2 multi-let property was acquired in 2006 by Icelandic bank SJ1 for €163 mln.