European investment manager Rockspring Property Investment Managers has purchased an office in Berlin for €25 mln on behalf of its TransEuropean Property Limited Partnership VI (TEP VI).
The vendor was a private German family office represented by Steffen & Co. Commercial.
The asset is the second ‘brick and beam’ tech office investment Rockspring has made in the German capital following another similar investment in Friedrichshain. The building comprises 7,000 m2 of office space plus 26 residential apartments, one retail unit and 20 car parking spaces.
'A perfect complement to the Fund’s first investment in Berlin, this deal concludes the initial portfolio assembly phase for TEP VI,' commented Paul Hampton, Rockspring partner and fund director of the TransEuropean series. 'With investments in a number of dynamic urban centres, including Geneva, Paris, Madrid, Lisbon and Berlin, we are excited about the prospects for significant value creation within the fund.'
The office building was originally constructed in the 1930s as a six-storey factory and has been occupied for the last 20 years by the Humboldt University. The tenant has recently vacated, offering an opportunity to fully refurbish the open plan floorplates and bring the ‘brick and beam’ accommodation to the market in the last quarter of 2017, according to Rockspring.
The refurbishment and repositioning of the asset will be implemented by Rockspring’s Berlin office, which also originated the transaction. Rockspring now has circa €2 bn assets under management across Germany and Switzerland.
The transaction follows a simliar deal in Lisbon’s Santos district and brings the total amount committed to Europe’s expanding creative urban districts to well over €100 mln.
TEP VI, which held a final close in July 2016 with €430 mln of equity as well as leverage of up to 55%, is now fully committed across 12 projects in six European countries.
