Deka acquires Stora Enso HQ in leaseback deal

German property fund manager Deka Immobilien has signed an agreement to acquire the head office of Swedish-Finnish paper manufacturer Stora Enso in Helsinki for EUR 30mln. Stora Enso will rent the 6,500 m² property back from WestInvest InterSelect, one of the Deka Group's funds, for a period of two to three years.

Ulla Paajanen-Sainio, vice president, investor relations and financial communications at Stora, told PropertyEU the company plans to move at the end of this period to rented accommodation in the Helsinki metropolitan area that 'better suits its future needs'. Information on the rental agreement was not disclosed.

The property in Helsinki was designed by architect Alvar Aalto as the head office of Enso Gutzeit and was inaugurated in 1961. Property advisor Newsec acted for Stora Enso.

Stora Enso will realise a capital gain of EUR 2mln on the divestment.

DekaBank Group is the largest provider of open-ended property funds in Germany. Its two capital investment companies, Deka Immobilien Investmentand WestInvest Gesellschaft für Investmentfonds, manage fund assets in excess of EUR 17bn.

The sale-and-leaseback agreement comes weeks after Stora Enso sold its former Berghuizer paper factory in the Dutch town of Wapenveld for EUR 21mln. Paajanen-Sainio said the company's strategy is to divest real estate that is no longer essential to its operations. Last September, the company agreed to sell the Reisholz Mill in Germany to a subsidiary of UK real estate investment trust Segro. The transaction price was not disclosed but Stora Enso said the sale would improve its operating profit for the third quarter of 2007 by EUR 10mln.