acquisitions in germany and luxembourg 

Savills IM acquires assets in Germany and Luxembourg for southern german pension fund

International real estate investment company Savills Investment Management (Savills IM) has acquired an office building at the Kirchberg district, Luxembourg, and a retail park in Bielefeld, Germany, for a combined €75m for one of its investment clients, a pension fund based in southern Germany. The assets were sold by a German publicly offered fund and a British investment manager.

The investment in Luxembourg is a modern office building located in the established office district of Kirchberg. The roughly 6,400 sqm of office space and 134 underground parking spaces at the property are under long-term lease to six well-known companies including Accenture, Cisco, TD Bank and TMF. The asset was purchased in December 2016.

The extensively renovated retail centre in Bielefeld has been in use as retail space for some time. The property encompasses slightly more than 10,000 sqm and was acquired in September. Anchor tenants include a latest-generation Edeka supermarket and a Media Markt electronics shop.

Gerhard Lehner, Managing Director and Head of Fund Management at Savills Investment Management:

“Compared to most European office markets, the vacancy rate on the Luxembourg office market is quite low, giving us potential for above-average rental growth. We are pleased to have acquired this asset for our client within the scope of a bidding process, in part due to the fact that yields at purchase there are still relatively low, particularly compared to core German markets. With its long-term leasing situation, the retail centre in Bielefeld will help guarantee stable distribution for the portfolio, which we have been building for the pension fund since 2015.”

“We are pleased to have the opportunity to continue to invest for the pension fund in 2017 and are planning to again focus our acquisition activities on core/core+ office and retail assets as well as selected logistics assets. We will particularly be looking to Germany but will also be placing greater emphasis on southern European countries and the Netherlands,” Gerhard Lehner concludes.