Korea's Mirae continues spending spree with top Frankfurt asset

South Korea’s Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. is reportedly about to sign a deal to buy the Taunusanlage 8 (T8) building in Frankfurt's prime CBD from global asset manager Credit Suisse Asset Management for a price of about €300m, marking its fourth major overseas property investment this year.

A report in the Maeil Business Newspaper, South Korea's leading business daily, said that Mirae is raising a private real estate fund to raise around 145 billion won (€120 million) from domestic institutional investors and buy equity interests in the property, the paper reported, citing unnamed real estate industry sources. The rest will be borrowed from financial institutions.

Credit Suisse Asset Management is managing the sale of the 17-story building, which was only completed last year. It had developed the construction project for its European real estate fund. British law firm Linklaters LLP will continue to lease the 28,860-square-meter building through 2025.

The building is nearby to the Commerzbank Tower, which was bought last year by divisions of the likewise Korean Samsung Group for €900 billion won.

Mirae Asset and its sister companies have been expanding into overseas real estate markets to meet growing demand from domestic investors for better yields.

With this latest deal, the total value of cross-border real estate purchases by the units of Mirae Asset Financial Service Ltd. is on course to exceed 1 trillion won (€1bn) so far this year. Last month, the financial group bought US non-insurer State Farm’s headquarters in Atlanta, US, for 330 billion won while its brokerage arm Mirae Asset Daewoo Co. Ltd bought Vodafone Germany’s office complex in Dusseldorf for 350 billion won.

In February, it also acquired a building in Canberra, Australia, for 280 billion won (A$320m). It also unsuccessfully bid for the Charles Schwab headquarters in San Francisco, which went to Blackstone for a reported $313m.