Pramerica snaps up Amsterdam's Crystal Tower

Prudential Financial's real estate arm Pramerica Real Estate Investors has acquired the Crystal Tower office building in Amsterdam from KFN for over EUR 67mln. The 95-metre high building is earmarked for Pramerica’s open-ended real estate fund TMW Immobilien Weltfonds. Designed by Dutch architectural studio AGS, the 27-floor property was completed in 2002 and provides 20,000 m² of office space and parking facilities for 214 cars. The asset, located in the Teleport business park in Sloterdijk in the northwest of Amsterdam, is mostly let to Deloitte (about 65%).

In begin March Pramerica also bought the Tour Gallieni project near Paris for its TMW Immobilien Weltfonds for about €100mln. The development, located in the town of Bagnolet, about seven km northwest of Paris, will provide a total 26,000 m² of accommodation and 508 parking spaces on completion in the first half of 2009.

The project has been acquired from Groupe Hoche Espais. ‘Our strategy is to acquire real estate at an earlier stage of development so that we can have major rental growth on these properties,' said TMW portfolio manager Sebastian Lohmer.

Pramerica Real Estate Investors said in a statement that it has secured a rental guarantee for a period of 12 months, so decreasing the risk of the investment.

The TMW Immobilien Weltfonds was set up in February 2008 and to date has raised a total of €125mln. The company said the fund will invest the equity in European and South American real estate over the next weeks.