LaSalle Investment Management has paid €130 mln for the 64,000 m2 Bright Offices complex in the Sloterdijk sub-market of Amsterdam as its first Dutch investment on behalf of its mandate for French pension fund ERAFP.
The vendor of the four-building complex, known formerly as Le Guardia, was Cairn Real Estate, the Dutch business of Germany asset and investment manager MPC Capital.
Bright Office was the first acquisition for the ERAFP mandate in the Netherlands and the sixth overall under the 10-year investment mandate since it launched in 2015. The fund invests in high quality core and core+ assets. Previous acquisitions on behalf of the French investor include prime retail, office and student housing in the UK, Germany and the Czech Republic.
The choice of Amsterdam Sloterdijk is significant as it is one of the sub-markets highlighted in the inaugural LaSalle European Human Capital Index (LEHCI), which was released at Mipim in Cannes last week.
Emerging sub-markets
The index primarily identifies major cities with a concentration of human capital, or the capacity of the population to drive economic growth through productivity. It also highlights smaller markets, including Oxford, Cambridge, Lyon and Stuttgart, as well 'emerging sub-markets' in larger cities, such as London’s East India Dock, Amsterdam Sloterdijk and Paris Quartier du Marais.
Amsterdam is expected to outperform the European and national average over the next five years, with expected GDP growth of 2.2% per annum. LaSalle said the investment was both a strong example of the socially responsible investment criteria that ERAFP deploys, and was also an investment in a quality asset in a DTUE (Demographics, Technology, Urbanisation and Environment) rich location, as stipulated by LaSalle's research.
Bright Office
After acquiring the complex in the summer of 2014, Cairn Real Estate repositioned the entire complex from a single tenant complex to a lively, multi-tenant working environment. The location has undergone extensive renovations, among others in the entrance area and central Plaza connecting the buildings, so tenants can use a wide range of additional services, such as coffee and salad bars in an attractive campus setup.
Maarten Briët, managing director at Cairn Real Estate: 'La Guardia is exemplary of our vision to add true and long-term value to the real estate sector and at the same time to generate attractive returns for institutional and private international investors.'
LaSalle was advised by Savills, Houthoff Buruma (legal), interim bouwconsult (technical) and Deloitte (tax). The seller was advised by CBRE.
