Catella fund spends EUR 12m in Munich

Catella Real Estate KAG announced on Thursday that it has acquired a 2,600-m² core office property in Munich for its German open-ended fund Catella Max for EUR 12 mln. The vendor is UBS Real Estate's (D) Euroinvest Immobilien fund.

The Catella MAX open-ended public real estate fund, which is focused on the Munich metropolitan region, was launched at the end of February 2010. Catella MAX is the first open-ended mutual fund whose investment arena is restricted to a particular metropolitan area.

Separately, listed company Scribona renamed itself Catella on the Nordic exchange First North.

In May, Scribona announced it was acquiring Catella AB, the European finance group that specialises in financial advisory services and asset management. The total cash amount, including redemption of Catella's debts, amounts to SEK 417 mln (EUR 43 mln). Goodwill from the acquisition amounts to approximately SEK 240 mln.

Scribona said at the time that it would change its name to Catella.

Catella's property arm is a leading adviser in Europe in the areas of property transactions and property financing, with a transaction volume of almost SEK 300 bn during the past three years. Catella Property Group conducts operations in 14 European countries and has 240 employees.

The new Scribona-Catella group will have 420 employees in 14 countries. Pro-forma equity for the new group totalled SEK 870 mln at end-March 2010. The new Scribona-Catella group aims to list the company’s shares on the main list for Nasdaq OMX Stockholm.

Johan Ericsson, former CEO for Catella Financial Advisory, is CEO of the merged group.