Spanish real estate company Metrovacesa has acquired eight buildings in Germany for EUR 340 mln from Tishman Speyer. The assets include seven properties located in the heart of Dusseldorf's banking district and one in Frankfurt. The deal is believed to reflect a net initial yield of 5%.

Spanish real estate company Metrovacesa has acquired eight buildings in Germany for EUR 340 mln from Tishman Speyer. The assets include seven properties located in the heart of Dusseldorf's banking district and one in Frankfurt. The deal is believed to reflect a net initial yield of 5%.

Tishman Speyer bought the Dusseldorf assets at end-2005 from an affiliate of the Blackstone Group for an undisclosed amount. The Dusseldorf assets, covering an entire city block, are currently leased to Deutsche Bank, the Bank of Tokio and Eurohypo and provide some 54,000 m2 of space as well as 400 parking spaces. The properties house the regional headquarters of German lender Deutsche Bank. The property in Frankfurt comprises some 20,400 m2 of space and 322 parking spaces. The US real estate giant spent EUR 38 mln to refurbish it last year. It is rented to Lufthansa, Nestle and Mercer. The paper added that Metrovacesa is also planning to build an office in Berlin in the coming months.

The Spanish group announced this year that it was planning to expand in the UK, Germany, as well as France, where the company already owned a large office portfolio through its former Gecina subsidiary. Earlier in 2007, Metrovacesa bought another major office building leased to an investment bank. Metrovacesa acquired the global head office of HSBC bank at Canary Wharf in London for £1.09 bn (about EUR 1.59 bn), the largest single property deal in UK history.

At the beginning of August, it also said it was planning to launch a new French subsidiary. The new unit, to be named Medea, will own the EUR 2.25 bn of real estate assets the Spanish company will receive from its French parent company Gecina under the separation process agreed by Metrovacesa's main shareholders last February.