Captiva fund acquires German retail for EUR 56m

Captiva Capital Partners III has acquired a retail portfolio in south-western Germany for over EUR 56 mln. The vendor was Romanian billionaire Dinu Patriciu's international property company, Dinu Patriciu Global Properties (DPGP).

The portfolio comprises 17 freehold retail assets, located in main road locations close to various cities across western Germany including Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Bremen, Nuremberg and Munich. The portfolio has a diverse mixture of first class tenants, with 21% let to REWE Group, Germany’s second largest food retailer. Other tenants include EDEKA, Netto, Tegut, Takko, Wasgau, Rossmann and Tedi.

The Captiva fund is managed by Natixis Capital Partners.

'The portfolio fits very well into our retail programme, which currently has more than EUR 300 mln of assets under management or contracted in Germany and which we are planning to grow by at least another EUR 100 mln over the next months,' said Stephan Fritsch, principal and managing director of Natixis Capital Partners. 'We are continuing to analyze opportunities with sustainable, financeable product such as this portfolio and are also interested in reviewing shopping centres and retail warehouses.'

Ross MacDiarmid, managing director of DPGP Frankfurt: 'As the German property market recovers particularly in the retail sector this presented an opportune time to release some assets to complete a restructuring of our German portfolio. We were not surprised by the high number of offers for this portfolio and is reflective of the short supply of good product in the market.'

DPGP, according to its website, has about EUR 1 bn of gross property assets under management. About two thirds of the portfolio is in Germany, with the balance in Romania and central Europe.

DTZ Frankfurt and Orrick Hölters & Elsing (legal) represented DPGP in the transaction. The purchaser was advised by Trûon lawyers, Drees & Sommer and PricewaterhouseCoopers.