Universal-Investment continues German retail buying spree

The Frankfurt-based fund manager GPEP GmbH, along with Universal-Investment (also of Frankfurt) concluded a deal to buy a portfolio of 12 special retail centres for a special fund managed by GPEP as the portfolio manager. The price was thought to have been around €20m.

The assets, with a total lettable space of 13,100 sqm, all have German discount grocer Netto Marken-Discount as their anchor tenant, with whom the owners have signed fresh 15-year contracts.

The seller in the deal was Marktkauf Holding GmbH, a subsidiary of the Hamburg-based EDEKA-Zentrale, which owns the Netto chain.Netto, the third largest discount grocer in Germany after Lidl and Aldi, itself has its headquarters in Maxhütte-Haidhof in Bavaria, and the 12 comprehensively renovated discount stores in the portfolio are mainly located throughout Bavaria.

Initiating and promoting the sale of the portfolio were EDEKA-subsidiary CEV Handelsimmobilien GmbH and veteran retail portfolio marketer JenAcon GmbH. The Universal-Investment Spezialfonds, as buyer for a pension fund, invests in inner-city office and retail property in Germany. Universal will handle the fund administration, while GPEP is responsible for portfolio, property and asset management.

In January, Universal-Investment bought the “Tonic” Portfolio for more than €230m from the Hamburg-based asset manager A&M Captiva. The properties were sold out of the Captiva Capital Partners III ELP property fund, and include 38 assets - 18 retail centres, nine supermarkets, nine discounters and two retail warehouses. The package has an occupancy rate of 98% after extensive asset man-agement and modernisations over the past years, Universal said. They are mostly located in smaller and mid-sized cities in western and southern Germany, with grocery supermarkets REWE and Edeka as anchor tenants. The portfolio will become part of a Universal-Investment Spezialfonds.

Universal Investment, which is owned jointly by Berenberg Bank and Bankhaus Lampe, manages more than €214bn in assets with its 550 staff, across more than 1,000 Spezialfonds and open-ended fund mandates.