SLI property club deploys €300m across 5 deals in Europe

Standard Life Investments' European Real Estate Club (Euro Club) has deployed its initial equity in five transactions in the Netherlands, Germany, France and Denmark totalling €300 mln.

Euro Club raised €308 mln from global investors at its first close in October 2014.

Daniel McHugh, head of Continental European real estate at SLI said: 'These deals are a strong start to the fund’s investment programme, and there’s more in the pipeline. They are testament to our strategy to focus on prime assets in core European markets with some measured risk.'

TRANSACTIONS
As reported by PropertyEU earlier this year, Euro Club acquired the new headquarters of Heerema Marine Contractors in the Dutch city of Leiden for €60 mln in the last days of 2014. The 20,000 m2 BREEAM Excellent certified office is due for completion in September 2015. Heerema had signed a long-term pre-lease.

Standard Life confirmed this week that the Euro Club also acquired two logistics properties in Brie-Comte-Robert in the southeast Paris region from LaSalle Investment Management. The properties have a combined size of 88,000 m2 and are currently 85% let for a fixed term of nine years to French construction materials group Saint Gobain.

The fund also acquired a 15,000 m2 property in the Levallois district of Paris as part of a forward purchase. The site will be used for a HQE and BREEAM certified office building that will be completed in December 2016.

In a fourth investment in the German town of Korbach, the fund purchased 48,000 m2 of logistics property as part of a forward-funding deal that completed in March this year. The property has already been pre-leased on a 15-year fixed term to Continental Tyres.

The fifth transaction saw the fund acquire three properties in the Danish cities of Copenhagen, Hilerød and Odense from Danske Bank. The 17,400 m2 portfolio consists mainly of office (51%) and retail (31%) space. The properties are fully or partly let and will be refurbished and repositioned to the market over the next two years.

SLI launched its first pan-European balanced funds, the European Property Growth Fund, in 2001.