M7 Real Estate, the pan-European multi-let property specialist, has acquired a 65,000 m2 logistics park in Budapest from a joint venture of CA Immo Group and Union Investment.
The purchase of the Aerozone Logistics Park for M7's Central European Real Estate Fund I (CEREF I) came as the company announced the final close of the fund, having reached its target of €60 mln of investment capital.
The transaction value was not disclosed but is understood to be in the mid-double-digit range.
CA Immo's sale of its 51% share of the JV completes the Vienna-based firm's strategic withdrawal from the logistics sector, which has been ongoing since 2012. The company has sold nearly 500,000 m2 of space in the last five years in Poland, Romania, Hungary and Germany.
The Aerozone park was also the last asset in the C1 portfolio held jointly with Union Investment, after CA Immo bought out minority holdings in office assets in Prague and Budapest. The company is reinvesting the revenue in expansion, particularly the construction of modern office buildings in Berlin, Munich and Frankfurt.
CA Immo CEO Frank Nickel said: 'This largely concludes our programme of non-core sales, which has been in progress since 2012. Alongside logistics, the programme covers the residential segment, smaller office buildings and properties outside of our core cities with a total market value of approximately €1 bn.'
M7 Real Estate also said it had agreed a €68.5 mln senior debt facility with Starwood European Real Estate Finance for the CEREF fund, with an initial term of three years. The fund targets core-plus and high-yielding regional opportunities across major cities in the Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.
The company said pipeline investments had been identified which would allow the remaining €65.5 mln to be allocated in the next few weeks.
Richard Croft, chief executive of M7, said: 'Having put our first tranche of investor capital to work in October, the additional investor capital raised, together with the senior debt facility with Starwood will allow us to proceed with the deals identified and to have the fund fully invested during the next 4-6 weeks.'
