AXA Real Estate completes €184m industrial fund sale

AXA Real Estate Investment Managers has completed the sale of two industrial portfolios in France and the Netherlands for a total €184.1 mln.

The transactions mark the wind-up of the European Industrial Partnership (EIP) which was set up by AXA Real Estate in July 2001 with Valad Europe as asset manager to invest in income-producing, multi-let industrial estates across Europe.

The fund acquired a number of major industrial estates in Germany, France and the Netherlands with a total floor space of 880,271 m2 over 53 estates when it was fully invested.

AXA Real Estate started selling off EIP’s property assets in January 2013 ahead of the fund’s expiry in January 2015.

The fund manager announced on Friday that it had sold the Spring portfolio of 10 French assets to Northwood Investors and the Zander Portfolio of 11 Dutch assets to Rockspring Property Investment Managers, marking the conclusion of EIP's disposal programme.

As first reported by PropertyEU and later confirmed by Rockspring, the UK fund manager acquired the Zander portfolio for €67.1 mln. PropertyEU deduces from this that the Spring portfolio was sold for €117 mln.

Dennis Lopez, chief investment officer of AXA Real Estate, said: ‘Despite the challenging market conditions the completion of the disposal programme concludes the operation of this investment vehicle which has been in place for over 12 years.’