​Union Investment buys first asset in Ireland for European fund

Union Investment has bought the first asset in Dublin for its open-ended UniImmo: Europa fund.

The German fund manager has spent €230m ($251m) on 4 and 5 Grand Canal Square, an office complex in the Irish capital.

The asset was sold by Irish developer Chartered Land and the country’s National Asset Management Agency (NAMA), created in 2009 to offload €77bn of property loans.

Philip La Pierre, Union’s head of investment management for Europe, said: “Ireland’s economic recovery is evident in the steady growth in rents, which looks set to continue over the next few years.”

”The favourable euro-dollar exchange rate should provide a further boost to Ireland’s export-focused economy.”

The 23,300 sqm complex, in Dublin’s South Docklands and completed in 2009, is fully let to Facebook with an average remaining term of more than 10 years.

Union recently took a 50% stake in the Watermark Place office building in London. The deal, a joint venture with the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement Scheme (OMERS), was also carried out for the UniImmo: Europa fund.