DIC Asset AG buys RLI Investors and stake in Realogis

In a flurry of activity just before year-end, listed German commercial property company DIC Asset AG made a major logistics acquisition on top of an earlier logistics asset deal, while at the same time spending nearly €180m on three infrastructure properties for its existing special funds managed by subsidiary GEG.

The headline-gathering deal, however, was its full acquisition of leading German logistics specialist RLI Investors along with a minority stake of 25% of Realogis Holding Gmbh, both headquartered in Munich. The price paid was €42m. 

The seller is Zürich-based Schweizer Capital Holding, a vehicle owned by ‘impact’ investor Umut Ertan, who founded both Realogis (in 2005) and RLI in 2013.

The move comes as part of DIC Asset’s stated strategy to expand its involvement with the logistics asset class, and will see DIC Asset’s AUM increase by about €700m, as well as taking over the investor base of RLI. The deal is expected to contribute €4m to DIC Asset’s EBITDA and increase the FFO per share as early as 2021. DIC Asset’s logistics holdings prior to the takeover amounted to only about €50m, so the company is moving swiftly to deliver on its announcement last summer to boost its logistics holdings.

By end-September 2020 DIC Asset had total AUM of €8.7bn, so this deal  - along with others closing in the final quarter - should see the group topping the €10bn mark in early-2021.

According to Sonja Wärntges, DIC Asset’s CEO, “This is a major forward-looking decision for the company...We now have outstanding teams and competencies aboard that will help us to keep expanding the logistics asset class within the group - including beyond the borders of Germany." This goes both for the proprietary portfolio and for the Institutional Business. "The sector expertise in regard to logistics investment products will very smoothly integrate into our existing product line-up, which we intend to keep expanding for international institutional investors, too."

RLI Investors employs 16 staff in its offices in Berlin and Munich, and has more than €700m in AUM on behalf of its institutional investor clients. Realogis is an independent consultancy focused on the industrial and logistics sector, and employs 60 staff in seven offices across Germany, letting and selling properties. The company will continue to operate under the Realogis brand.

Just prior to the RLI takeover, DIC Asset had bought a new-build logistics asset in Bremen for €25m, an 8,500 sqm unit close to the airport. The asset comprises two buildings, an office scheme and a hybrid-use building with space for manufacturing, R&D, and workshop space with additional offices. The tenant is Airbus Group. The deal brought DIC Asset’s acquisition volume for the year to date to more than €1.6bn.

The company also closed on three further transactions for special funds managed by its subsidiary GEG, which handles the group’s third party business for institutional investors. The amount invested was just over €179m. The assets were: the Magazinhof (€65m), a city campus with 15,000 sqm in Kassel, let out to the state-owned Landesbetrieb Bau und Immobilien Hessen, with a WALT of about 15 years; the Wacker Hof in Düsseldorf (€75m), let to the City of Düsseldorf with 13,000 sqm, and a WALT of seven years; and the Galilei property in Mannheim (€39m), with 9,300 sqm and let to EuroChem Agro and auditors Deloitte. This third asset was bought for a manage-to-core Spezialfonds.