Gramercy closing in on €800m of Europe sale-leaseback deals
Investment fund Gramercy Property Europe is buying a 74.9% stake in a portfolio of logistics assets in Germany and France from its US parent company Gramercy Property Trust in a deal valuing the assets at €300m.
The European company had already bought a 20% stake in the same portfolio in May of this year from Goodman Europe Development Trust. The outstanding 5.1% share remains with New York-listed parent Gramercy Property Trust,
The portfolio comprises nine high quality logistics assets, eight of which are located in Germany and one in Lille in northern France, providing 500,000 sqm of space. The buildings have a weighted average age of five years and are fully leased to single tenants, with over 60% of the rent due from Amazon. Goodman will continue to handle the property management mandate for the portfolio.
According to Alistair Calvert, managing director of Gramercy Europe, “This is a significant acquisition for Gramercy Property Europe. In the past twelve months we have acquired €602m of long leased, single tenant assets across Europe. The majority of the portfolio comprises high quality logistics assets and the fund has a WALT of 8.6 years. Over half of the assets are located in Germany, with 24% in the Netherlands and 11% in France.”
Several further deals are in the pipeline, he indicated, adding "We expect a significant investment volume through the next six months.”
In a recent meeting with REFIRE, Calvert outlined the Gramercy strategy to invest up to €800m in Europe this year, as part of the company’s plan to build a pan-European portfolio of industrial, office, retail and special-purpose assets with medium or long-term leases to “highly durable or investment-grade tenants”.
Calvert previously worked for ThreadGreen Europe, and subsequently sale-and-leaseback specialist WP Carey when it bought out ThreadGreen. Gramercy's European drive has initial private equity commitments of €350m from groups such as the New York-based Fir Tree, Senator Investment Group and Washington-based EJF Capital, as well as its own parent company.
Calvert said the company's German pipeline was filling up rapidly with deals, mostly sized between €10m and €30m. All are single-asset sales and are mostly logistics properties.