AEW Europe offloads logistics assets for €129m

Fund manager AEW Europe has sold a Dutch and German logistics portfolio to Canadian REIT Granite for a total €129 mln.

The portfolio was sold on behalf of Curzon Capital Partners II (CCPII), a core plus fund advised by AEW Europe.

The portfolio consists of seven assets with a total floor area of 229,000 m2. Four are located in Germany (Peine,
Straubing, Neumarkt, Soest) and three in the Netherlands (Bergen op Zoom, Botlek region, Haaften).

Granite expects to initially fund the purchase through its line of credit and cash on hand.

Each of the properties is currently single tenant, 100% occupied. The seven tenants include ALSO Actebis, Kühne + Nagel, Meyer & Meyer, Ricoh, Tchibo, DB Schenker and Van Uden Logistic with a weighted average lease term of five years.

Electronics company Ricoh recently signed a new 12-year lease for the largest asset in the portfolio. The average age of the properties is 10 years.

Nick Judge at AEW Europe commented: ‘We identified in early 2013 that investor demand was increasing for European logistics and this allowed us to undertake off-market discussions with a select number of specialist investors. We are glad to match up this cross border portfolio with Granite’s already substantial North American and European operations.’

CCPII was represented by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, PWC, Alpha Industrial and DT Real Estate.

Granite REIT was represented by Gleiss Lutz, Stibbe and Allen & Overy.

Toronto-based Granite specialises in industrial real estate which owns around 30 million square feet and over 100 properties in North America and Europe.