Asian investors were on course to secure two of the largest office assets on the market in the Netherlands recently, but were ultimately pipped at the post by German fund managers, PropertyEU's latest Dutch briefing has heard.
Asian investors were on course to secure two of the largest office assets on the market in the Netherlands recently, but were ultimately pipped at the post by German fund managers, PropertyEU's latest Dutch briefing has heard.
The news counters speculation that the Netherlands is missing out on the wave of Asian investment in key European real estate markets.
While capital from Asia - in particular Korean, Malaysian and more recently Chinese - has become a major feature of the London real estate investment in recent years, it has yet to really touch down in the Dutch market, according to Erik Langens, senior director of capital markets at CBRE Netherlands.
However, foreign interest in Dutch real estate is on the rise after several crisis years, the briefing hosted by CBRE Global Investors in London heard. 'A lot of money is coming from the US and the UK, primarily from the private equity side,' Langens said. And, the big German fund managers continue to be a mainstay of the Dutch investment market. 'We don't see China or Asia in the picture of completed transactions,' Langens said.
BIG BELGIAN DEAL
The only big Asian investment in the Netherlands tracked by PropertyEU research was the joint acquisition by AXA Real Estate and Chinese hospitality group NHA of the Hotel Krasnapolsky in the centre of Amsterdam for €157 mln last year.
By way of contrast, a far larger deal in neighbouring Belgium during 2013 was backed by Asian capital. German fund manager Hanover Leasing, acting on behalf of an unnamed Asian fund, acquired the 11-storey Belair complex in downtown Brussels for €300 mln.
Asian capital would have carved out a larger share of recent Dutch investment in the sale of the Symphony and ITO-SOM office complexes in Amsterdam's Zuidas district, but for higher bids by German investors.
Lagens: 'For Symphony, the offers from the Asian investors were better than expected and we would have sold that to them because the purchase price was good enough for the owner to sell.' Ultimately Germany's Deka Immobilien tabled the winning bid of €213 mln.
Similarly, Hamburg-based Union Investment beat off Asian bids to take control of ITO-SOM for €244 mln in April this year.
Langens said that Asian capital is not finished with the Netherlands. 'While we spend a lot of time presenting the Dutch market to private equity, we also see tours of Chinese and Korean investors driving through the Netherlands to see what they can do here. Hopefully, we will be able to show more Asian money on our investment graphs next year.'
Click on the link for more on the Netherlands Investment Briefing
