Fund manager Cordea Savills has bought 8,000 m2 of Copenhagen city centre retail assets from London property firm Meyer Bergman.
Fund manager Cordea Savills has bought 8,000 m2 of Copenhagen city centre retail assets from London property firm Meyer Bergman.
Meyer Bergman’s second value-add fund, Meyer Bergman European Retail Partners II (MBERP II), sold the assets for €70 mln after a holding period of about two years. The fund had assembled the portfolio of buildings on Copenhagen’s Købmagergade as part of its initial investments.
The street is part of the Danish capital city’s busiest shopping locations, since it is anchored by retailers including Louis Vuitton, Royal Copenhagen, Illums Bolighus, and the Illum Department Store.
The properties’ total of 8,040 m2 of office and retail space is occupied by tenants including international brands Diesel, Esprit, Geox and Gina Tricot.
'This is the second unsolicited approach we received for assets in the fund, validating our strategy of concentrating on dominant, high footfall retail high streets in the centres of Europe’s leading cities that have sustained strong demand from retailers as well as investors,' said Frederik Kumlin of Meyer Bergman’s acquisitions team. 'The healthy outlook for the Danish economy and the resilience of prime shopping destinations mean we continue to see interesting opportunities in central Copenhagen.'
Meyer Bergman was advised by property consultant Cushman & Wakefield/RED, with Bech-Bruun advising on legal aspects.
Michael Rodda, head of EMEA retail investment at Cushman & Wakefield who advised Meyer Bergman, said: 'This transaction further underlines the appeal of the Nordic region to a growing pool of international capital and follows on from the sale of Rosengardcentret in 2013. We are already seeing a similar depth of appetite for other core shopping centres in the region.'
It has also been reported that Meyer Bergman has made a renewed investment in London´s Queensway in Bayswater, West London.
In September, PropertyEU reported on the firm´s involvement with a Brunei family office´s purchase of Queensway’s Whiteley's department store, as part of a broader investment in the street thought to be worth more than €600 mln.
At the time, London's Evening Standard newspaper reported Meyer Bergman CEO Markus Maijer as saying, 'We are thinking of designing the shops facing Queensway so that they have entrances directed onto the widened pavements, and the restaurants also having pavement tables.'