London-based private equity investment firm Keyhaven Capital Partners has divested the last asset in a portfolio of 15 Portuguese office properties, thus concluding its three year hold of Eanos Investments.
The specialist secondaries private equity investor, which focuses on the European lower mid-market, said that it had acquired Eanos as part of a strategy to explore opportunities arising from bank asset sales across the EU, in turn triggered by the global financial crisis.
Keyhaven was able to source the opportunity off-market, through exclusive discussions with a distressed seller due to a longstanding relationship with a local partner.
Following underinvestment from the previous owner, the Keyhaven team said it was able to identify and realise considerable value for the portfolio over a relatively short period through a structured transaction and active management.
Sasha van de Water, managing partner at Keyhaven said: 'When we acquired Eanos Investments in March 2017 it suited our strategy as the portfolio was at a clear inflexion point for change. Throughout the relatively short holding period, we successfully navigated the complexity of a portfolio restructuring working closely with a local partner to transform and optimise the assets.'
Specific actions included working closely with a local operating partner on reducing vacancy rates, deploying capex to improve the properties, and positioning assets more effectively for sale to a tailored group of buyers.
Environmental and sustainability initiatives also played an important role in value creation across the portfolio with every property refurbishment including the adoption of energy efficiency measures, which served to improve the energy ratings. There was also a focus on construction waste recycling across the portfolio.
After a series of sales throughout the three year hold period, the final core asset was sold to a blue-chip European insurance company. Previous core assets were sold to leading institutional investors in a competitive auction process. Overall, the sales of 15 assets have generated a multiple of two times cost across the entire portfolio, according to the firm.
'The investment has been an example of our ability to identify attractive proprietary opportunities, highlighting the advantages of our secondaries strategy. We have also shown the important role ESG initiatives can play in driving value creation, in this instance through energy efficiency measures during refurbishment,' concluded van de Water.
