Kildare buys €700m German commercial portfolio from GE Capital

Private equity firm Kildare Partners has acquired a €700 mln German commercial real estate and debt portfolio from GE Capital Real Estate for an undisclosed amount.

The package is believed to include 60 commercial properties and 80 secured loans with a face value approaching €700 mln.

GE Capital Real Estate is selling the assets as part of its strategy to reduce the size of GE Capital, its financial unit, to focus on its core industrial operations. In April the group sold the bulk of its property assets to Blackstone and Wells Fargo in a transaction valued at $23 bn (€20 bn).

As part of that deal, Wells Fargo purchased performing first mortgage commercial real estate loans valued at $9 bn in the US, UK and Canada while Blackstone bought the US equity assets for $3.3 bn, performing loans in the US, Mexico and Australia, as well as the European equity real estate assets for €1.9 bn. These consist of office, logistics and retail assets, largely located in the UK, France and Spain.

Following the latest sale, GE Capital will have only half a dozen assets left in Germany, where it plans to close down its Frankfurt office currently employing 40 staff by mid-2016, according to a news report by Immobilien Zeitung.

Timo Thömmes, managing director and General counsel of GE Capital Real Estate Germany, said: 'Within a very short time we have succeeded in completing an immensely complex integrated share and portfolio transaction at very high quality. At the same time, it was important to us to put the portfolio into good hands. We are confident that this is the case with Kildare Partners.'

GE Capital Real Estate was advised by Clifford Chance on the deal.

Bermuda and London-headquartered Kildare was founded in 2013 by former Lone Star executive Ellis Short. It raised equity of $2 bn for its first European real estate investment fund last year. In total, the company has acquired assets for over $3.8 bn over the past two years in Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, Norway and Ireland.

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