Europa Capital's Fund III has entered into a joint venture with Ream Capital Partners and completed the £26 mln purchase of a portfolio of flexible workspace assets from Safeland.
Europa Capital's Fund III has entered into a joint venture with Ream Capital Partners and completed the £26 mln purchase of a portfolio of flexible workspace assets from Safeland.
The Flexspace portfolio comprises eleven assets providing 69,500 m2 of industrial/warehouse and office accommodation located across England. There are over 350 tenants in the portfolio representing small and medium enterprises typically occupying on flexible short term contracts.
The portfolio will be asset managed by Ream Capital Partners.
'We have been working with Ream to secure investment opportunities from banks reducing their real estate exposure, and are delighted to enter into this high yielding management intensive opportunity, with the potential to grow the joint venture with further investments,' said Rob Sim, partner and head of Northern Europe at Europa Capital.
Mike Birch, managing partner of Ream Capital, said 'We are very pleased to have concluded our first joint venture with Europa, which is part of a banking initiative that began almost three years ago. The transaction, which includes the transfer of 16 staff, forms a platform for growth for the Ream business.'
Ream Capital was founded in 2008 by Mike Birch and Jon Taylor. It is focused exclusively on providing asset management services in the UK and has a team of dedicated real estate professionals headquartered in London, with representation across the regions. Ream Capital specialises in working with real estate lenders to halt the depreciation of values and implement asset repositioning strategies and disposals.
Separately, Europa Capital announced the completion of the acquisition of the Mall of Sofia in the Bulgarian capital from GE Real Estate and Avestus Capital Partners. The EUR 100 mln-plus acquisition - originally announced in June - was financed by the existing lenders OTP Bank and DSK Bank.
A member of The Rockefeller Group, Europa Capital is an established real estate fund management group operating from offices across Europe. Since 1995, Europa Capital’s Principals have collectively raised 6 real estate funds and committed to over 70 transactions totalling some EUR 7 bn across 18 European countries. Europa Capital is currently investing two investment funds for European property investment, being Europa Fund III and Europa Emerging Europe, which invests in Eastern Europe. Together, these funds raised EUR 895 mln of equity capital for investment.
