Austrian real estate investor Signa Holdings is reportedly acquiring a portfolio of Karstadt department stores in Germany for EUR 1 bn. The portfolio includes the Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe) department store in Berlin, according to a report in the German edition of The Wall Street Journal.
Austrian real estate investor Signa Holdings is reportedly acquiring a portfolio of Karstadt department stores in Germany for EUR 1 bn. The portfolio includes the Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe) department store in Berlin, according to a report in the German edition of The Wall Street Journal.
Signa Holdings, the investment vehicle of Austrian businessman Rene Benko, declined to comment on the report when contacted by PropertyEU.
KaDeWe comprises 60,000 m² of retail space and is let to the Karstadt department store chain. The iconic retail destination is described as the largest department store in continental Europe, second in size only to Harrods in London.
German property news service Thomas Daily said the deal covers 10 properties and is expected to close in 2013, with Signa paying half the volume for KaDeWe.
The vendor is the Highstreet consortium consisting of Goldman Sachs' Whitehall Funds, Deutsche Bank's RREEF unit, Prelios and Generali Real Estate.
Highstreet has sold numerous properties from the portfolio in recent years and last November PropertyEU reported that the consortium had put KaDeWe on the market with a price tag of about EUR 500 mln.
Signa already owns several Karstadt properties. In June 2011 it acquired three Karstadt premises in Munich and Hamburg for EUR 500 mln.
