Babcock & Brown and GPT expand joint venture

Babcock & Brown, Australia's investment bank, and GPT Group, the fourth-largest real estate investment trust in Australia, have agreed to invest a further A$800 mln (EUR 478 mln) in their property joint venture to buy more assets and start new investment funds.

Bloomberg reported the venture has bought A$5.7 bn (EUR 3.4 bn) worth of assets in Europe and the US since June 2005. The two companies said in statements that the acquisitions will be used to start traded and closely held real estate funds.

The joint venture owns properties in Germany, the Netherlands and other European countries. It also has some retail assets in the US. In addition to the EUR 478 mln in funding, GPT said it will provide the equivalent of EUR 363 mln in preferred capital and both will add EUR 57 mln in ordinary capital. On top of that both companies will inject EUR 119 mln in short-term funding. Bloomberg reported that in September Babcock & Brown and GPT said they planned to start a fund that would hold EUR 1.1 bn of German and Swiss retail property bought by the bank.

'The expansion of the Joint Venture and the establishment of a funds management platform will allow us to take advantage of a range of opportunities we believe continue to exist in both the European and other markets globally,' Phil Green, ceo of Babcock & Brown said.

Separately, it has been reported that Babcock & Brown has bought 250 Lidl retail properties in a sale and leaseback transaction from the Handelsgruppe Schwarz. FT Deutschland said the properties were sold for EUR 1bn and are spread throughout Germany and Switzerland. A spokesperson of Babcock & Brown said the number properties and the purchase price mentioned are too high, but did not give any further details.

Germany's Immobilien Zeitung reported on Monday that Babcock & Brown and GPT intended to list a portion of their jointly-held portfolio on the Euronext stock exchange in Amsterdam.