EXCLUSIVE: More details on the Tour Adria deal

Asset manager Primonial REIM backed by French institutional money has emerged as the buyer of a majority stake in the landmark Tour Adria at La Défense.

Landlord Testa, part of construction group Sacyr, put the asset on the market in spring 2012 to help reduce its debt pile. The group appointed CBRE to run the sale following a competitive pitch with other agents.

‘We started discussions with several investors, and the asset drew interest from all over the globe, including Asia and the US. Eventually the best offer was made by a consortium led by asset manager Primonial,’ Adolfo Ramírez-Escudero of CBRE Capital Markets Spain told PropertyEU.

‘The sale to an OPCI tax-efficient vehicle and the structuring of the transaction as a share deal made the operation more complex but also more interesting,’ he added.

The 155-metre high tower provides 54,000 m2 of office space and is fully let to oil giant Technip through 2021. CBRE is the asset manager.

The transaction price of €450 mln is understood to be in line with the asset’s last appraised value but is much lower than Testa’s acquisition price back in March 2006.

Eight years ago the Spanish company acquired the asset from DB Real Estate for as much as €560 mln. Three years earlier the asset traded for €362 mln.

‘The tower has generated an annual return of over 6% since acquisition,’ Testa said in a statement. Testa has recently sold an asset in Miami, US and is re-focusing on its home market.

LOT SIZE
Ramirez-Escudero of CBRE said that the main challenge of the sale was the big size of the asset. ‘The main issue with the sale of this asset was its big lot size and we succeeded in overcoming this problem by working with a consortium of investors in which all players have taken a smaller interest and share the risk and the return,’ he said.

The transaction was structured as a share deal whereby the OPCI PREIM Défense 2 vehicle is acquiring over 33 million shares of Tesfran, the Testa subsidiary which owns the asset at €6.74 per share.

As part of the deal, Testa is retaining a 32% stake in the tower through the purchase of a €75 mln interest in the new vehicle set up to buy the building. Primonial REIM and its clients hold 68% of the shares of the OPCI.

‘This transaction allows the OPCI to gain a foothold in La Défense market with a defensive investment and while benefiting from an important and secure rental flow,’ the buyer said.

LA DEFENSE
OPCI PREIM Défense 2 is understood to be backed by five companies including Testa and four other institutional investors, representing mainly insurance and pension fund money.

Primonial REIM was advised by law firms Etude Wargny-Katz, CGR Legal and Fidal as well as Denjean & Associés. Godet Gaillard Solle Maraux & Associés and Etude Rochelois Besins Associés acted for the vendor.

Tour Adria is the second asset to change hands at La Défense in just a few weeks. Last month, US-based developer-investor Tishman Speyer bought Tour Pacific, a 53,000-m2 office building from Canadian group Ivanhoe Cambridge.

Coeur Défense, the largest office complex in Europe, has also been put up on the market by its owners ahead of a looming debt maturity.