Euro Property articles from March 2005

Euro Property archives from March 2005

Difa [euro]200m office sale marks start of German sell-off.
March 1, 2005... International investors set to capitalise as German fund managers come under pressure to sell domestic assets Difa has become the first German open-ended fund manager to market a portfolio of domestic office buildings in a bid to reduce its...

CBRE pips Atisreal in race for UK's Nelson Bakewell.
March 1, 2005... CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) has pipped Atisreal to the purchase of UK surveying firm Nelson Bakewell. A provisional deal has been signed between the world's largest agent and the 530-strong agency founded in 1982 by Phillip Nelson and Simon...

CGI's de Haan set to quit fund manager.
March 1, 2005... Arnold de Haan has resigned as managing director of Commerz Grundbesitz Investmentgesellschaft (CGI). The fund manager said De Haan was leaving to pursue new international challenges. He will be replaced by Detlev Dietz and Frank P"rschke from...

Pillar Properties poised for [euro]60m Italian retail park buy.
March 1, 2005... Equity injection from Norwich Union Life Funds at the end of last year has helped fund to purchase the Fidenza park, one of Italy's biggest retail developments UK property company Pillar Properties is close to acquiring one of Italy's biggest...

New skyscraper planned after fire fells Madrid landmark.
March 1, 2005... Inmobiliaria Ason is to build a new tower on the site of Madrid's Edificio Windsor, which was gutted by fire last month. Accountancy firm Deloitte & Touche occupied 20 floors of the 32-floor, 106m landmark tower in the Chamartin commercial...

Apollo gains $600m for first dedicated European fund.
March 1, 2005... Contributions from joint-venture partners are expected to take the fund to $3.5bn Apollo Real Estate Advisors has raised $600m in equity for its first dedicated European fund. Bill Benjamin, managing director of Apollo in Europe, said that with...

Four bidders vie to buy E.ON portfolio.
March 1, 2005... German utility E.ON has reportedly selected four bidders for its [euro]6.1bn property company Viterra. Terra Firma, Fortress and two consortia of Whitehall and Cerberus, and Citigroup and Corpus, are believed to have entered the next round in...

Matrix makes French debut with [euro]35m Nice purchase.
March 1, 2005... UK fund manager Matrix Securities has made its first buy in the French market. The company bought IBM's 42,000m[sup.2] European Research and Development Centre near Nice for [euro]35m. The property was sold by a Stam/Westbrook joint venture and...

Stock exchange deal for Patron.
March 1, 2005... TMW Pramerica has bought Burzovni Palace, the Prague stock exchange building, from fund manager Patron Capital. TMW Pramerica gave no financial details of the transaction, but market sources put the purchase price at just under [euro]25m,...

Finpaco makes bid for control of Italy's IPI.
March 1, 2005... Italy's Finpaco Properties has launched a takeover bid for 35% of the share capital of Italian property company IPI, offering a price of [euro]5.6 a share. Finpaco Properties presently controls 65% of IPI. Fiat has a 10% stake and Italian...

Kristensen buys German flats.
March 1, 2005... Denmark's Kristensen Properties has bought 3,579 flats in the German town of Kiel for DKr1bn ([euro]135m) from Australia's Babcock & Brown. The acquisition of the portfolio, which has a total floor space of 208,000m[sup.2] and 7 commercial...

Fund managers join forces for first German PPP vehicle.
March 1, 2005... LB Immoinvest's and Lindner's [euro]500m vehicle will target assets let to German state Germany's LB Immoinvest and Lindner Immobilien Asset Management are preparing to launch the first fund targeting public-private partnership (PPP) projects...

SEB settles dispute with rating agency Scope...
March 1, 2005... SEB ImmoInvest and Scope have settled their differences out of court following the fund manager's temporary injunction against the rating agency, which had put it on credit watch with a negative outlook. Scope said it had received further...

... as ImmoSpezial fund opens to public.
March 1, 2005... SEB ImmoInvest has turned one of its German Spezialfonds into a public fund for both institutional investors and private investors. The three-and-a-half-year-old SEB ImmoSpezial has become SEB ImmoPortfolio Target Return Fund, a value-added...

CBRE forms securities team to tap growing REIT market.
March 1, 2005... Formation of the 29-strong team anticipates spread of real estate investment trusts Global property fund manager CB Richard Ellis Investors is launching CBRE Global Real Estate Securities, its first fund management division focusing on global...

Immoeast stakes claim to giant Polish retail scheme.
March 1, 2005... Immoeast, a unit of Austria's Immofinanz, has bought the 110,000m[sup.2] Silesia City Centre in Katowice, which will be Poland's largest regional shopping centre, with 240 shops, when completed. The shopping centre has a catchment area of 2.7m...

British Land seals Debenhams sale.
March 1, 2005... UK property company British Land has bought 23 Debenhams department stores across the UK in a [pounds sterling]495m sale-and-leaseback deal. The initial yield for the deal was 5.6%, with annual rent rises of 2.5-3% and a review in March 2019....

FDR follows Bail takeover with bid for French hotels.
March 1, 2005... French SIIC Fonciere des Regions (FDR) is pursuing a portfolio of 128 French hotels following its acquisition of fellow property company Bail Investissement. FDR is leading a group of investors including Assurances du Credit Mutuel, Generali...

Mapeley on course for [pounds sterling]500m flotation.
March 1, 2005... The UK's Mapeley is planning a [pounds sterling]500m flotation - the biggest UK property listing since Canary Wharf went public in 1999. Mapeley has appointed Merrill Lynch to advise on the float. The outsourcing company, which the government...

Merrill prepares co-pooled CMBS.
March 1, 2005... Merrill Lynch is to sell [pounds sterling]257.5m of bonds in Europe's first co-pooled commercial mortgage-backed securitisation. With this method, two lenders join forces to issue bonds. Merrill's conduit, Taurus No 1, will issue the bonds to...

Heitman lines up [euro]175m for central European vehicle.
March 1, 2005... Chicago-based Heitman has completed the first closing of its Heitman Europe Property Partners III Fund (HEPP III), having raised [euro]175m. HEPP III aims to buy office, warehouse, residential and retail property in Poland, Hungary, the Czech...

Beni Stabili buys Banca Intesa out of joint venture.
March 1, 2005... Italian property company Beni Stabili is to take full control of property unit Milano Zero Tre as part of its strategy to focus on the domestic market and take advantage of foreign interest in Italian property. Milano Zero Tre was formed as a...

Meinl boosts war chest with [euro]230m share issue.
March 1, 2005... Austrian central and eastern European retail specialist Meinl European Land has placed 18m new shares with private and institutional investors. The subscription price was [euro]13 a share and the issue raised [euro]230m. Based on the price of...

Morgan Stanley and Lar Sol plan Spanish homes venture.
March 1, 2005... A 155-home development on the Costa Blanca is the debut project for Lar Sola MS, which aims to tap the booming market for second homes in Spanish coastal areas Morgan Stanley's Real Estate Fund IV (MSREF) has set up a joint venture with Spain's...

Canary Wharf let is recovery sign.
March 1, 2005... Canary Wharf has let 9,290m[sup.2] to US broker Cantor Fitzgerald for its headquarters, as signs of a recovery in the London office lettings sector emerge. The broker is taking a 14-year lease on the 93,000m[sup.2] 1 Churchill Place at around...

IVG snaps up third London building.
March 1, 2005... German property company IVG has paid a group of Israeli investors [pounds sterling]107.9m for a central London office block. The 14-storey, 15,000m[sup.2] Riverside House, on Southwark Bridge Road, SE1, is IVG's third purchase in London in the...

French Office Fund first closing secures [euro]101m.
March 1, 2005... UK fund manager F&C Property Asset Management, in partnership with MAAF Real Estate Investment Managers, has raised [euro]101m at the first closing of its closed-ended French Office SCA (Fosca) fund. The money was raised from a range of...

Aareal raises fund for German housing.
March 1, 2005... Aareal Asset Management (AAM) will this month start raising cash for a [euro]500m German residential fund for international investors. The Aareal German Residential Fund will be a Luxembourg FCP to which investors will contribute a minimum of...

Morley teams up with BAA for [pounds sterling]800m UK airport fund.
March 1, 2005... The 50/50 fund is seeded with warehouse space at Heathrow and Gatwick airports UK fund manager Morley Fund Management has created an [pounds sterling]801m airport property fund with UK airport operator BAA. BAA has transferred property valued...

ATP pours [euro]65m into Euro vehicles.
March 1, 2005... Danish institution ATP has committed [euro]65m to two new European funds. It has invested [euro]25m in opportunity fund Europa Fund II and [euro]40m in Heitman European Property Partners III (HEPP III). ATP participated in the second closing of...

Euronews in brief.
March 1, 2005... iii combines funds German open-ended fund manager iii has merged its iii-Fonds Nr. 1 and Fonds Nr. 2 funds and rebranded the combined vehicle as Euro ImmoProfil. The merger follows disappointing performance for the funds, which were too heavily...

Surveying firms think local in campaign to go global.
March 1, 2005... The big firms are building up their global networks by entering emerging eastern markets Stories of a supposed "bonus bonanza" this spring for top staff at London-based commercial property consultancies are already appearing in the UK press....

Looking for the REIT answer.
March 1, 2005... Property shares are buoyant, but firms are struggling to find product to spend their money on. Real Estate Investment Trusts may hold the key by bringing more assets to the market Last year was a very good one for investors in European...

INREV reveals 10% return for non-listed fund investors.
March 1, 2005... Non-listed vehicles association puts data on country and sector returns out for consultation Institutional investors in European non-listed vehicles received an average return of 10.2% per annum between 2001 and 2003, according to INREV's...

Fund managers seek to close the skills gap.
March 1, 2005... A new course has been designed to give students the right mix of property and finance skills Are you a fund manager still looking for that special employee with the correct mix of financial and property skills, as well as the ability to speak a...

Investment deals set to top [euro]100bn in 2005.
March 1, 2005... Investment volumes hit [euro]95bn last year with a big increase in cross-border deals European direct investment volumes are on track to top [euro]100bn this year, according to the latest figures from Jones Lang LaSalle. Volumes reached...

Industry gains degree of sophistication.
March 1, 2005... In 2001, I wrote an article looking at the skills shortage in the pan-European property industry. Fund managers were frustrated at not being able to get the right staff. Employers were having to compromise on their requirements, whether it was...

People.
March 1, 2005... DTZ's eastern European head moves on Chris Bennett, chairman of DTZ Central & Eastern Europe, is retiring from the firm at the end of April after more than 10 years with the company. John Verpeleti, presently managing director, will take over...

Heard in the Eurolounge.
March 1, 2005... Groovy times in Cannesa Mipim is upping its celebrity count for the annual property exhibition taking place in Cannes later this month. Back by popular demand are icons of the punk era The Stranglers, who will be bringing a little anarchy to...

Four visions help firms prepare for the future.
March 1, 2005... To inform today's decision makers, King Sturge has drawn up four possible 2020 scenarios for the property industry What will the world of European property be like in the year 2020? And how can we prepare for economic growth while balancing...

Multiplex.
March 1, 2005... The Australian developer is making a big splash with its Continental debut, a [pounds sterling]1bn-plus marina project in Gibraltar, and has ambitious plans for further expansion in Europe Multiplex, the Australian developer that is storming...

Canary Wharf.
March 1, 2005... Following its takeover by a Morgan Stanley-led consortium, the landmark London property estate is planning two major, mixed-use developments Twenty years ago, Canary Wharf was an expanse of derelict warehousing in east London's run-down...

Aareal Asset Management.
March 1, 2005... The fund management arm of Aareal Bank, formed last year, is about to launch a German residential fund and aims to get more international investors on board Aareal Asset Management is the latest investor to join the hunt for residential...

Societe Fonciere Lyonnaise.
March 1, 2005... The French property company's profits rose 79% in its first annual results since becoming an SIIC. SFL is also benefiting from the financial muscle of new owner Colonial of Spain French property company Societe Fonciere Lyonnaise (SFL) has...

Kristensen Properties.
March 1, 2005... Having completed a number of retail developments in the Baltic states, the Danish company has now started to build up a portfolio of German residential property Danish property company Kristensen Properties has just made its first residential...

Prime Commercial Properties.
March 1, 2005... The private UK shopping centre investor recently moved into the German market, attracted by low property prices. At home it plans to reshape its portfolio by acquiring larger centres UK-based shopping centre investor Prime Commercial Properties...

Pillar Retail Europark Fund.
March 1, 2005... A Belgian retail park is the latest purchase for Pillar's fund, which recently raised an extra [euro]100m in equity and aims to acquire [euro]1bn of assets over the next 18 months A [euro]100m equity injection at the end of last year provided...

Industrial revolution pushes up Budapest land prices.
March 1, 2005... Budapest has the highest serviced industrial land prices in central and eastern Europe, at [euro]45-70 per m[sup.2], according to Colliers International. Price rises have been driven by limited supply and growing activity in Hungary, because of...

European retail to expand by 9.5m m[superscript two].
March 1, 2005... Up to 9.5m m[sup.2] of retail and leisure space could come onto the European market in the next two years, according to Cushman & Wakefield Healey & Baker (CWHB). Around 4.2m m[sup.2] will hit the market this year and 5.3m m[sup.2] in 2006. In...

Key data: non-listed.
March 1, 2005... INREV data shows growth in value-added funds sector Fall in gross asset values for German open-ended funds..................... ..................................................... ............. How the data was obtained and...

Key data: Non-listed sector.
March 1, 2005... Two European funds were launched in February Q4 capital flows fell year-on-year for many spezialfonds Capital inflows to Deka Immo's seven funds almost halved in Q4 2004 compared with the previous year's Q4 total. The fund manager's remit...

Key data: The listed sector.
March 1, 2005... Poor UK performance held back the EPRA Europe index in January The Asia index made a strong start to the year The EPRA Europe Index rose 2.2% in January. France led the way with a rise of 2.9%, EPRA Netherlands was up 1.9%, while the overall...

New players and strategies refresh securitisation field.
March 1, 2005... Many corporations are coming to see CMBS issues as an effective refinancing tool, while on the lending side, new entrants are seeking to tap this growing market Keen competition from new entrants in the commercial mortgage-backed securities...

Property finance.
March 1, 2005... An increasing number of lenders are seeking a slice of the growing securitisation market, while more adventurous players are also looking to lend in eastern Europe and Russia Securitisation continues to carve an increasing slice out of the...

German banks seek foreign break from domestic woes.
March 1, 2005... German lenders are looking ever further afield to alleviate bad loan problems at home HSH Nordbank is opening a branch in Paris this month, a sign of German banks' efforts to shrug off poor returns at home by expanding across Europe and into...

Russia forms eastern front for adventurous leaders.
March 1, 2005... The likes of Aareal and Hypo are following the EBRD into Romania, Russia and the Baltics The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is heading east. "To a large extent, our role in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic is...

Difa [euro]200m office sale marks start of German sell-off.
March 1, 2005... International investors set to capitalise as German fund managers come under pressure to sell domestic assets Difa has become the first German open-ended fund manager to market a portfolio of domestic office buildings in a bid to reduce its...

CBRE pips Atisreal in race for UK's Nelson Bakewell.
March 1, 2005... CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) has pipped Atisreal to the purchase of UK surveying firm Nelson Bakewell. A provisional deal has been signed between the world's largest agent and the 530-strong agency founded in 1982 by Phillip Nelson and Simon...

CGI's de Haan set to quit fund manager.
March 1, 2005... Arnold de Haan has resigned as managing director of Commerz Grundbesitz Investmentgesellschaft (CGI). The fund manager said De Haan was leaving to pursue new international challenges. He will be replaced by Detlev Dietz and Frank P"rschke from...

Pillar Properties poised for [euro]60m Italian retail park buy.
March 1, 2005... Equity injection from Norwich Union Life Funds at the end of last year has helped fund to purchase the Fidenza park, one of Italy's biggest retail developments UK property company Pillar Properties is close to acquiring one of Italy's biggest...

New skyscraper planned after fire fells Madrid landmark.
March 1, 2005... Inmobiliaria Ason is to build a new tower on the site of Madrid's Edificio Windsor, which was gutted by fire last month. Accountancy firm Deloitte & Touche occupied 20 floors of the 32-floor, 106m landmark tower in the Chamartin commercial...

Apollo gains $600m for first dedicated European fund.
March 1, 2005... Contributions from joint-venture partners are expected to take the fund to $3.5bn Apollo Real Estate Advisors has raised $600m in equity for its first dedicated European fund. Bill Benjamin, managing director of Apollo in Europe, said that with...

Four bidders vie to buy E.ON portfolio.
March 1, 2005... German utility E.ON has reportedly selected four bidders for its [euro]6.1bn property company Viterra. Terra Firma, Fortress and two consortia of Whitehall and Cerberus, and Citigroup and Corpus, are believed to have entered the next round in...

Matrix makes French debut with [euro]35m Nice purchase.
March 1, 2005... UK fund manager Matrix Securities has made its first buy in the French market. The company bought IBM's 42,000m[sup.2] European Research and Development Centre near Nice for [euro]35m. The property was sold by a Stam/Westbrook joint venture and...

Stock exchange deal for Patron.
March 1, 2005... TMW Pramerica has bought Burzovni Palace, the Prague stock exchange building, from fund manager Patron Capital. TMW Pramerica gave no financial details of the transaction, but market sources put the purchase price at just under [euro]25m,...

Finpaco makes bid for control of Italy's IPI.
March 1, 2005... Italy's Finpaco Properties has launched a takeover bid for 35% of the share capital of Italian property company IPI, offering a price of [euro]5.6 a share. Finpaco Properties presently controls 65% of IPI. Fiat has a 10% stake and Italian...

Kristensen buys German flats.
March 1, 2005... Denmark's Kristensen Properties has bought 3,579 flats in the German town of Kiel for DKr1bn ([euro]135m) from Australia's Babcock & Brown. The acquisition of the portfolio, which has a total floor space of 208,000m[sup.2] and 7 commercial...

Fund managers join forces for first German PPP vehicle.
March 1, 2005... LB Immoinvest's and Lindner's [euro]500m vehicle will target assets let to German state Germany's LB Immoinvest and Lindner Immobilien Asset Management are preparing to launch the first fund targeting public-private partnership (PPP) projects...

SEB settles dispute with rating agency Scope...
March 1, 2005... SEB ImmoInvest and Scope have settled their differences out of court following the fund manager's temporary injunction against the rating agency, which had put it on credit watch with a negative outlook. Scope said it had received further...

... as ImmoSpezial fund opens to public.
March 1, 2005... SEB ImmoInvest has turned one of its German Spezialfonds into a public fund for both institutional investors and private investors. The three-and-a-half-year-old SEB ImmoSpezial has become SEB ImmoPortfolio Target Return Fund, a value-added...

CBRE forms securities team to tap growing REIT market.
March 1, 2005... Formation of the 29-strong team anticipates spread of real estate investment trusts Global property fund manager CB Richard Ellis Investors is launching CBRE Global Real Estate Securities, its first fund management division focusing on global...

Immoeast stakes claim to giant Polish retail scheme.
March 1, 2005... Immoeast, a unit of Austria's Immofinanz, has bought the 110,000m[sup.2] Silesia City Centre in Katowice, which will be Poland's largest regional shopping centre, with 240 shops, when completed. The shopping centre has a catchment area of 2.7m...

British Land seals Debenhams sale.
March 1, 2005... UK property company British Land has bought 23 Debenhams department stores across the UK in a [pounds sterling]495m sale-and-leaseback deal. The initial yield for the deal was 5.6%, with annual rent rises of 2.5-3% and a review in March 2019....

FDR follows Bail takeover with bid for French hotels.
March 1, 2005... French SIIC Fonciere des Regions (FDR) is pursuing a portfolio of 128 French hotels following its acquisition of fellow property company Bail Investissement. FDR is leading a group of investors including Assurances du Credit Mutuel, Generali...

Mapeley on course for [pounds sterling]500m flotation.
March 1, 2005... The UK's Mapeley is planning a [pounds sterling]500m flotation - the biggest UK property listing since Canary Wharf went public in 1999. Mapeley has appointed Merrill Lynch to advise on the float. The outsourcing company, which the government...

Merrill prepares co-pooled CMBS.
March 1, 2005... Merrill Lynch is to sell [pounds sterling]257.5m of bonds in Europe's first co-pooled commercial mortgage-backed securitisation. With this method, two lenders join forces to issue bonds. Merrill's conduit, Taurus No 1, will issue the bonds to...

Heitman lines up [euro]175m for central European vehicle.
March 1, 2005... Chicago-based Heitman has completed the first closing of its Heitman Europe Property Partners III Fund (HEPP III), having raised [euro]175m. HEPP III aims to buy office, warehouse, residential and retail property in Poland, Hungary, the Czech...

Beni Stabili buys Banca Intesa out of joint venture.
March 1, 2005... Italian property company Beni Stabili is to take full control of property unit Milano Zero Tre as part of its strategy to focus on the domestic market and take advantage of foreign interest in Italian property. Milano Zero Tre was formed as a...

Meinl boosts war chest with [euro]230m share issue.
March 1, 2005... Austrian central and eastern European retail specialist Meinl European Land has placed 18m new shares with private and institutional investors. The subscription price was [euro]13 a share and the issue raised [euro]230m. Based on the price of...

Morgan Stanley and Lar Sol plan Spanish homes venture.
March 1, 2005... A 155-home development on the Costa Blanca is the debut project for Lar Sola MS, which aims to tap the booming market for second homes in Spanish coastal areas Morgan Stanley's Real Estate Fund IV (MSREF) has set up a joint venture with Spain's...

Canary Wharf let is recovery sign.
March 1, 2005... Canary Wharf has let 9,290m[sup.2] to US broker Cantor Fitzgerald for its headquarters, as signs of a recovery in the London office lettings sector emerge. The broker is taking a 14-year lease on the 93,000m[sup.2] 1 Churchill Place at around...

IVG snaps up third London building.
March 1, 2005... German property company IVG has paid a group of Israeli investors [pounds sterling]107.9m for a central London office block. The 14-storey, 15,000m[sup.2] Riverside House, on Southwark Bridge Road, SE1, is IVG's third purchase in London in the...

French Office Fund first closing secures [euro]101m.
March 1, 2005... UK fund manager F&C Property Asset Management, in partnership with MAAF Real Estate Investment Managers, has raised [euro]101m at the first closing of its closed-ended French Office SCA (Fosca) fund. The money was raised from a range of...

Aareal raises fund for German housing.
March 1, 2005... Aareal Asset Management (AAM) will this month start raising cash for a [euro]500m German residential fund for international investors. The Aareal German Residential Fund will be a Luxembourg FCP to which investors will contribute a minimum of...