Finland's Fennia Mutual Insurance Company has sold a prime CBD office property in Helsinki to Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Company for €41 mln.
The property is located next to the Esplanade Park at Eteläesplanadi 8 and its lettable area is 7,500 m2.
'The sale of real estate is part of our regular portfolio management, which aims to create a versatile and well-diversified real estate investment portfolio for Fennia,' commented Timo Rantala, asset manager for Fennia's real estate business. 'The property attracted both domestic and foreign demand, but we are pleased to have closed the deal with a domestic investor,' he added.
Finnish advisory Advium advised Fennia on the sale.
Advium also advised Otava on the divestment of two office properties in Pasila, Helsinki, to Finnish constructor-developer YIT Corporation for an undisclosed sum. The assets have a total area of 17,500 m2. Otava also agreed to lease 6,000 for YIT's Tripla middle block, which will be completed in stages during 2019-2021.
The deals were recorded as property advisory Pangea Property Partners reported that Finland had registered record high transaction volumes to date in 2017, approaching €10 bn. While domestic investors are active, many Finnish institutions are looking for partners and international diversification, Pangea said. The recent investment of pension-insurer Ilmarinen into the Manchester office market illustrates the trend.
To date, there have been large capital inflows from Sweden, but also Germany, Switzerland, US and the UK. Schroder Real Estate inked a portfolio of nine core assets in Helsinki for €150 mln last month from private equity real estate firm Niam.
The record Finnish volumes are also due to the sale of Sponda to Blackstone, Pangea noted. The €3.8 bn takeover was recently concluded, with Sponda's board applying for the termination of its shares from the official list of Nasdaq Helsinki.
