US private equity giant TPG has made its first direct real estate acquisition into Italy with the purchase of a Telecom Italia portfolio for around €90 mln, PropertyEU has learned.

US private equity giant TPG has made its first direct real estate acquisition into Italy with the purchase of a Telecom Italia portfolio for around €90 mln, PropertyEU has learned.

The transaction price is believed to be close to the assets' appraisal value. It reflects a yield of over 8%.

The transaction, which was signed last week, was structured as a fund deal whereby TPG has taken over units in the fund owning the properties, known as Aries.

The vendor is London-based asset manager Tristan Capital Partners (formerly Curzon Global Partners). The assets were originally bought by Curzon in 2006 from Raissa, a fund owned by Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing. They have been gradually sold down over the past months with TPG taking over the remaining properties in the fund.

The current package consists of a total of 150 operational properties occupied by the Italian telecomm group, and involves a total of 160,000 m2 of space. TPG has appointed First Atlantic, led by Daniel Buaron, as asset manager for the portfolio.

Broker CBRE and law firm Chiomenti advised the vendor on the deal. Sherman & Sterling acted for the buyer.

Europroperty reported in June that TPG was in negotiations to buy the assets.

TPG entered Italy in late 2014 with the acquisition of the Nucleus loan portfolio from Citigroup. The debt transaction involved several Italian assets entirely leased to energy giant Enel.

This is the second Telecom Italia portfolio to change hands in Italy in the last week following a recent renegotiation of the leases by the telecomm group. Last week, US private equity firm KKR joined forces with Hines' Italia Value Added Fund and services firm Coima to make its first foray into Italy with the purchase of five assets leased to Telecom Italia. The deal amounted to €49 mln.

The assets were acquired from Tecla Fondo Uffici, a listed closed-end vehicle managed by Prelios.

They are located in the cities of Monza, Rome, Parma, San Remo and Pavia and are currently let to Telecom Italia. In total, the properties provide a gross area of 35,500 m2.

Other two assets near Milan were sold back by Tecla to Telecom for over €26 mln.