Tyrolean real estate investor Rene Banko's Signa has bought a portfolio of 16 office buildings from Austrian bank Bawag PSK. Although the parties declined to comment on the financial details, newspaper Die Press said the portfolio, valued at EUR 450 mln, was sold for just EUR 200 mln as the bank was under pressure to raise funds quickly.
Tyrolean real estate investor Rene Banko's Signa has bought a portfolio of 16 office buildings from Austrian bank Bawag PSK. Although the parties declined to comment on the financial details, newspaper Die Press said the portfolio, valued at EUR 450 mln, was sold for just EUR 200 mln as the bank was under pressure to raise funds quickly.
The decision to offload the offices of the Austrian trade union federation in Vienna, Graz and Innsbruck followed Bawag's agreement earlier this year to pay back about $683 mln to creditors after a damaging financial scandal connected to the collapse of a New York-based financial services group. Battered by the scandal, Bawag, Austria's fifth-largest bank, reported losses of EUR 1.8 bn in 2006. This year the bank was sold to a consortium headed by US investor Cerberus Capital Management for EUR 3.2 bn.
Separately, Signa's Dusseldoft office announced last week that it had acquired the Hoto business tower in the Croatian city of Zagreb for EUR 72 mln. The building is let to the Croatian subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, Hrvatski until 2019. Landesbank Hessen-Thuingen provided EUR 50 mln in financing for the transaction.
