In the latest sign of a rebound in the Spanish property market, Swiss insurance Group Zurich has forked out €201 mln to acquire a portfolio of 13 office buildings from the local Catalan government, Generalitat de Catalunya.
In the latest sign of a rebound in the Spanish property market, Swiss insurance Group Zurich has forked out €201 mln to acquire a portfolio of 13 office buildings from the local Catalan government, Generalitat de Catalunya.
Zurich, advised by JLL, has acquired the 93,000 m2 package which includes renowned assets such as Pg. St Joan 39-41 and Diputación 353-355, occupied by the Interior Ministry.
The local government is leasing back all the assets on long-term leases.
This is the second major sale by the Generalitat de Catalunya over the past 12 months. Last year, AXA Real Estate bought a portfolio of 13 government-let office buildings in Barcelona, as part of a sale-and-leaseback transaction with local authority Generalitat de Catalunya for €172 mln.
Last week the Catalan public agency Consorci de la Zona Franca de Barcelona (CZFB) also selected the French asset manager as preferred bidder for Barcelona’s Diagonal 00 skyscraper, in what will be one of the largest single-asset deals in Spain since the credit crisis.
Acting on behalf of an unnamed client, Europe’s largest real estate asset manager presented a €107 mln bid for the tower which is the Barcelona headquarters of Spanish telecom operator Telefónica. The offer represents a 9% premium to the asset's selling price of €98.5 mln.
