German food retail specialist Greenman ties up €143m Edeka deal
REFIRE sat down recently with fast-growing Irish-headquartered Greenman Investments to learn more about the company’s strategy, which has propelled it to becoming German’s largest food retail-focused investment fund.
The company has just embarked on a major new investment spree which will see it buy 33 Edeka-anchored retail properties for its Greenman OPEN fund. The deal, done in two separate transactions, has a combined value of €143m.
Greenman OPEN now has assets under management of €570m, making it the largest fund in Germany in the food retail sector.
Greenman’s ebullient CEO Johnny Wilkinson was particularly enthusiastic about how the deal gives Greenman OPEN access to properties that span each of Edeka’s operational brands, and will enable the company to operate “at first hand” with Edeka, as it develops its various retail concepts across Germany in the long term. Since 2006, Edeka has been Germany’s biggest food retailer, with a current market share of 26%.
In this latest deal, Greenman is buying four properties from EDEKA MiHa for about €25m in a sale-and-leaseback transaction. The new lease contracts vary in length but have a WARLT (weighted average remaining lease term) of 11.5 years. Three of the properties will be sub-let by EDEKA MiHa to their cash-and-carry brand MIOS.
Greenman is also buying 29 EDEKA MiHa supemarkets for a combined purchase price of €118m from listed Berlin-based TLG Immobilien. The properties are 100% occupied on long-term leases with an average WARLT of 11.28 years and in some cases include redevelopment provisions. The majority of the properties are in Saxony-Anhalt and Lower Saxony.
According to Wilkinson, “Our latest purchases for the Greenman OPEN fund complement our existing portfolio of food-dominated retail stores across Germany. This is our 4th sale-and-leaseback transaction with EDEKA MiHa and we look forward to developing our long-standing relationship with EDEKA and maximising the potential of this portfolio in the coming years.”
Greenman’s funds exclusively invest in German food-dominated retail parks and food retail warehouses. As at March 2019, Greenman has €667.6m assets under management across its open-ended fund, closed funds and a joint venture, tailored to different types of investors.