Frankfurt’s Eurotower sold to pension fund for €480m

The Eurotower, the previous home of the European Central Bank in the centre of downtown Frankfurt, is being sold by its owners, the New York-based RFR Holding, to Germany’s IVG Institutional Funds, for €480m in a share deal. The beneficial owner is a German pension fund.

RFR sold the 150m tall tower in a share deal to IVG Institutional Funds, part of the recently de-listed IVG Immobilien AG, at a purchase price base of €480m, while retaining a stake of just above 5%, an IVG Funds spokesman said. The 60,000 sqm asset is currently undergoing extensive refurbishment by RFR until the end of this year, and will subsequently become the home of the European Banking Authority for its Single Supervisory Mechanism, a new compliance division that has reportedly added a further 900 jobs to the ECB’s Frankfurt infrastructure.

RFR, which holds over €10bn in property in the US and Germany, is headed by German-born Aby Rosen and Michael Fuchs and has been recently very actively acquiring in particular on Berlin’s exclusive Kurfürstendamm. Its assets include the Westendgate in Frankfurt opposite the Fair, the Alsterarkaden in Hamburg, and the Seagram Building and Gramercy Park Hotel in New York.The firm bought the Eurotower in 2007 for €430m from Degi, then part of the now-defunct Dresdner Bank group.

Following the comprehensive financial restructuring of the parent group, IVG Institutional Funds has added €1bn in net assets over the past six months and now manages around €10.5bn, it said. It said in a statement that this latest acquisition represents “another milestone” in its recent history. “Following the successful reorganisation of the company and the sale of the Silver Tower in 2014, IVG Institutional Funds has recorded further growth of around €1 bn in the past six months. Tailored investment and management solutions for institutional investors based on individual or club mandates will remain the basis of the company’s future growth.”