Allianz Real Estate is selling Givenchy’s Paris headquarters and attracted a strong field of international as well as domestic capital, PropertyEU has learned.
According to local sources, Malaysian pension fund EPF made a strong bid for the building at 16 Ave George V but has been pipped by French buyer MACSF. The yield is said to be well below 3%, at around 2.7%. This would put the price at close to €200 mln.
A number of large German funds are also thought to have made bids for the 6,000 m2 property in Paris’s Golden Triangle, as did JP Morgan Asset Management’s new core open-ended fund.
Allianz let 16 Avenue George V to haute couture house Givenchy in March last year. Cushman & Wakefield advised.
The international line-up for this asset follows a similar story to Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield’s sale of Nestlé’s redeveloped head office in Issy-les-Moulineaux in the south west of the capital.
Agreed last month, at €650 mln Shift is the largest deal in the Paris office market so far in 2020.
A source said: ‘Some Koreans made a very aggressive bid on the Nestlé HQ. Koreans bidding on a sizeable deal again is new since COVID; it was not the case before summer.’
In the event, URW opted to sell the 47,000 m2 Shift building to a domestic consortium led by Primonial REIM and including EDF pension fund and La Francaise. The final sale contract is due to be signed in early 2021. Nestlé has taken a 12-year lease.
The reappearance of Malaysia’s Employees Provident Fund in Paris follows an acquisition in London this year made before the COVID outbreak. EPF teamed up with CBRE Global Investors to pay c£330 mln for Premier Place, 7 Devonshire Square. Vendors Morgan Stanley and Greycoat refurbished and relet the building after paying £145 mln for it just three years ago.
Brokers say that these latest Paris office transactions show that pricing is at least as strong if not stronger than before COVID for prime property. ‘There was a buyer of a CBD asset, 35 rue de Bassano, during the lockdown at a record price, and now we are seeing the same type of prices’, one said.
The Bassano asset was bought by Alduwaliya Asset Management which invests on behalf of the Qatari royal family. The yield on that €40 mln deal in the 8th district is said to have been 2.7%.
