CS Euroreal offloads Amsterdam office to Deka for EUR 140m

Credit Suisse Asset Management has sold the Viñoly office building at Amsterdam's South Axis business district to German open-ended fund Deka Immobilien Europa, PropertyEU has learned.

The deal was signed on Wednesday for EUR 140 mln on behalf of Credit Suisse's EUR 6 bn CS Euroreal open-ended fund, which is under pressure to lift liquidity in the face of a planned one-day re-opening on May 21. The deal raises CS Euroreal fund’s liquidity to 27% from 25% previously.

Located at Claude Debussylaan - Gustav Mahlerplein, Viñoly was acquired by Credit Suisse in 2005, and comprises nearly 30,000 m² of offices with a minor retail element on the ground floor. According to the Amsterdam land registry, Credit Suisse bought the property for around EUR 120 mln. The complex is fully let with tenants including Google, ANT Trust and law firm Boekel de Nerée.

Earlier this week, PropertyEU reported that CS Euroreal is also finalising the sale of the Europa-Galerie shopping centre in Saarbrücken, Germany which it acquired in 2010 from inner-city retail developer ECE. The EUR 170 mln retail asset located in the capital of the German state of Saarland opened in October 2010, and provides 25,000 m² over 110 specialist stores, cafés, restaurants and service outlets.

Credit Suisse Asset Management announced on Wednesday that it plans to re-open CS Euroreal on 21 May for one day of trading. If the demand for investor redemptions exceeds the available net liquidity of 25% of the fund's volume, the fund will be liquidated, Credit Suisse said. ‘We will open the fund for one day to see how it does,’ a Credit Suisse spokesperson told PropertyEU. ‘It’s very difficult to gauge in this difficult climate and after what happened to SEB but we have got good feedback from our distributors,’ she said.

Earlier this week, SEB Asset Management was forced to announce that its open-ended fund ImmoInvest would be liquidated by April 2017 after too many investors decided to redeem their units in the fund. The EUR 6.3 bn open-ended fund had been opened for one day of trading on Monday.

The CS Euroreal fund has been frozen to redemptions for two years. If the cash buffer is sufficient to redeem the fund units tendered by investors, the fund will continue to operate under new regulations which stipulate that new units be issued and tendered once a year rather than on a daily basis as is currently the case.

The Viñoly office transaction was structured by Amsterdam-based Van Gool Elburg Vastgoedspecialisten on behalf of Credit Suisse. Law firm Houthoff Buruma advised Credit Suisse on the legal side. Deka was legally advised by law firm Baker & McKenzie.

Click on the link below to read: Credit Suisse to re-open CS Euroreal fund on 21 May