Union Investment hunts for Turkish office investments

German investor Union Investment Real Estate is keen to follow up on shopping centre acquisitions in Turkey with office purchases but hasn't found the right opportunities yet.

'Turkey is a very exciting market which we started to look at an early stage and we have made two major shopping centre investments,' Reinhard Kutscher, chairman of Union Investment Real Estate, told PropertyEU.

Union Investment bought Multi's 71,500 m2 Forum Mersin project in 2006 and the scheme opened the following year. Multi and Union Investment opened the 65,000 m2 Forum Kayseri in 2011. The project involved an investment of €250 mln and Multi is the manager of the centres.

'We had a difficult time at Mersin initially due to the country's economic and currency problems but since then both centres are doing very well,' Kutscher said.

Union Investment would also like to get into the Turkish office sector but hasn't found the right opening. 'We have not been able to find the right office opportunity yet as the amount of offers of new or almost new high-quality buildings of the type we want, even in Istanbul, is limited. If something of good quality shows up we will definitely look at it.'

However, Kutscher ruled out linking up with a partner in the same way it has done with Multi Corporation in the shopping centre sector. 'Office and retail are very different stories. Shopping centres are very management intensive. We are very capable of making our own assessment of an office investment.'

Union Investment carried out its shopping centre deals in Turkey through its open-ended fund UniImmo Europa. The fund has a portfolio totalling €7.3 bn and can invest up to 40% of its assets outside Europe.