Avison Young leads Canadian pension funds into Germany

Avison Young, a Toronto-based commercial real estate services firm recently made its first foray into the German market when it advised two Canadian pension funds in the acquisition and financing of a mixed-use, two-building complex in Cologne, Germany, for an unnamed amount.

Frankfurt-based Allianz Real Estate Germany GmbH was the seller on behalf of Stuttgart-based Allianz Life Insurance, in a deal brokered by CBRE. The long-term loan funding was provided by DekaBank.

The Cologne dual property is a prominent complex on Barbarossaplatz and Luxemburgerstrasse in downtown Colgone’s business district, comprised of 16,700 sqm in total, divided into 14,500 sqm of office space and 410 sqm of retail, and eleven residential units. It is fully leased, with the anchor tenant being consultants KPMG. The intial yield is 6.5%. In another first for Avison Young, it will also serve as asset manager, its first asset management mandate outside North America.

Avison Young has been flexing its muscles in North America over the past couple of years and, to listen to Amy Erixon, head of investment management at the group, has been itching to take broader international steps. “We are grateful for the confidence placed in us by our Canadian pensionfund clients to secure investments on their behalf, which can provide diversification and more attractive riskadjusted returns than comparable properties in Canada can offer at this point in the cycle,” she said. She also said that Avison Young plans to buy increase its investments in Europe, and is looking at office and industrial, residential and mixed-use assets in the €30m-€40m range. Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland are high on the list of favoured countries, she said, with possibly Poland in the future.

Avison Young’s man in Frankfurt, Udo Stöckl, also commented: “Our European and North American investment teams worked seamlessly across borders to provide the same level of service that our clients expect in North America. For our growing European team, it was also an exciting opportunity to introduce North American clients to an entirely new market that was previously unfamiliar to them. We took the opportunity to share with them, and our extended team, German business traditions and culture, and look forward to expanding that knowledge to other recovering markets in Europe.”

The German acquisition is not the first European move for the group. Last month Avison Young launched its European presence by buying London-based NAI Haywards LLC and opening new offices in London and Thames Valley, U.K. Over the past five years, the company has grown from 11 to 56 offices and from 300 to more than 1,500 professionals across Canada, the United States and now Europe.