Savills IM sells European assets for €579m

Savills Fund Management GmbH, a subsidiary of Savills Investment Management, has sold seven assets in the Netherlands, four assets in Paris, two assets in Germany as well as one asset in Vienna.

The market value of the transactions totaled €579 million ($621 million).

CBRE and BNP acted on behalf of Savills Fund Management GmbH.

The Dutch assets make up a homogenous portfolio consisting of seven architecturally striking, well-let office buildings with strong tenant loyalty and stable income. The lettable floor space of more than 645,000 square feet is let to seven companies. The assets are located in Randstad, an area in the west of the Netherlands, which consists of Greater Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Randstad is one of the largest metropolitan areas as well as one of the leading economic regions in Europe. The market value of the portfolio amounted to 
€136 million ($146 million). Signal Capital Partners LLP was the buyer in the structured bidding process.

In March, Savills Fund Management GmbH signed sales contracts for four office buildings in Paris. The assets were sold to two different parties. The portfolio consists of four properties in three locations with a total lettable floor space of around 614,000 square feet and occupancy of 87 percent. The aggregated sale price is above the last determined market value of €387 million ($415 million). The assets were purchased by Deka Immobilien and J.P. Morgan Asset Management France.

In Germany, two assets were sold. One asset, located in Unterschleißheim, was sold to a private investor. The second asset in Stiftstraße 30 in Frankfurt was bought by a Munich-based project developer. The building is located in one of the best inner city locations of Frankfurt near the shopping street Zeil. The office building totals around 50,000 square feet and was built in the 1950s. Given its location, the building is suitable for high-rise residential development and the fund management was able to sell the asset for double its current market value.

The office building in Vienna provides for retail space on the ground floor and was built in 1989. It was extensively refurbished from 2006 to 2009. It is more than 90 percent let and was sold for well over the last determined market value of €38 million ($41 million). The asset was bought by an Austrian open-ended real estate fund.

All the above assets were part of open-ended real estate funds in dissolution. 13 assets were part of the portfolio of the fund SEB ImmoInvest. One asset in the Netherlands was owned in equal parts by the portfolios of SEB ImmoInvest and SEB Global Property Fund.