Hines and Universal-Investment have deployed €190 mln in two high street property transactions in Spain on behalf of the €1.3 bn mandate from German pension investor BVK.
The two high street retail assets with associated office space are located in Madrid and Barcelona.
Lars Huber (pictured), CEO of Hines Europe: 'Since being awarded the BVK mandate in the fourth quarter of 2015, Hines has successfully acquired a number of high-quality retail assets in prime locations on high streets across European territories including France, Italy, the UK, Ireland, Norway and Denmark. We are excited to add these two prime assets in Spain's most important cities.'
Busiest pedestrian street in Madrid
The latest acquisitions include a property on Calle Preciados / Maestro Victoria in Madrid which was purchased for €100 mln. The vendor was Spain's Baraka Group. The transaction comprises two adjacent buildings, Preciados 13 and Maestro Victoria 5. Calle Preciados is the busiest pedestrian street in Madrid, and with a combined area of almost 5,000 m2, Hines said that it expects to create a flagship retail location on the street which is one of Spain’s busiest shopping locations.
The Barcelona property was bought from a private vehicle managed by Banco Popular for €90 mln. The asset located in Paseo de Gracia 17 is currently Banco Popular’s headquarters in Barcelona. Hines will redevelop it to deliver a refurbished building offering over 3,000 m2 of prime retail space and 5,000 m2 of grade A office space.
Aguirre Newman advised Hines on the acquisition of Preciados, while CBRE was the buy-side advisor in Paseo de Gracia's acquisition.
Nine transactions
BVK is Germany's largest pension scheme group with €69 bn assets under management. Hines and Universal have now completed nine transactions allocating over €900 mln of the €1.3 bn investment mandate which is targeting high-street retail assets across Europe.
Hines, a US-headquartered international real estate firm, said that the transactions reinforce its strong presence in Europe where it has €13.4 bn assets under management in most major countries and cities across the continent.
Universal-Investment is the largest independent investment company in German-speaking countries in Europe with fund assets across a range of asset classes of about €300 bn.
