Ireland’s Greenman heading for €90m with German retail fund

Irish real estate group Greenman Investments has made its first investment for its Greenman Retail+ fund by buying the Tribseer Center in the northern German town of Stralsund in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania for €18.8m. The transaction was done as part of a share deal.

The Retail+ Fund is Greenman’s first Luxembourg-registered AIF, enabling it to raise equity from throughout Europe. Among several funds the company offers, the Retail+ Fund is the company’s second fully focused on Germany’s specialist retail markets (“Fachmarktzentren”), shopping centres with multiple tenants but anchored by a strong grocery retailer. The fund is raising €50m from investors from Luxembourg and German vehicles and is targeting €90m of acquisitions by March 2016, with the prospect of returns above 8%.

A second deal is close to completion, according to CEO John Wilkinson when REFIRE met with Greenman at the MIPIM in Cannes recently.

The Stralsund asset is currently undergoing extensive renovation in the hands of Hamburg-based project management firm Concept-Immobilien Projektentwicklungs GmbH, with completion expected in the fourth quarter and the centre being re-named ChausseeCenter. Grocery supermarket Rewe will be the anchor tenant and take 40% of the space, with the remainder including shoe retailer Deichmann, and Takko Fashion.

The Dublin-based Greenman, founded in 2005, originally started in Germany in automobile service centres which are let out to globally-recognised car service providers. The group has since expanded into retail real estate, and currently owns 18 centres across Germany valued at more than €100m. It plans further work with Concept-Immobilien to revitalise a number of its other centres over the next 18 months.