More buys by Corpus Sireo for German healthcare funds

Corpus Sireo International, the Cologne-based fund manager which is part of Swiss Life Asset Management, has acquired a nursing home and two medical centres in Germany for a total of €30m on behalf of two of its healthcare funds.

Health Care Fund II bought a nursing home in Bad Segeberg, located north of Hamburg in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein. The 5,400 sqm facility is operated by Azurit on a new 20-year lease. The existing facility is operating at full capacity, and an extension will be built in order to cope with the strong local demand. This brings the fund up to 16 properties now throughout Germany.

For the Health Care Fund III, which was set up in the autumn of 2015, Corpus Sireo acquired two medical centres, one in Berlin-Köpenick and the other in the Kaiserslautern region of Southern Germany. The fund now owns three medical centres.

Fund manager Sebastian Schlansky commented: “With the Corpus Sireo Health Care III fund for medical centers, which was set up at the end of 2015, we are offering our investors a further opportunity to invest in the health care market which is to a large extent independent of economic cycles. In this year, we are planning acquisitions of approximately €150m via our corresponding fund vehicles.”

Corpus Sireo is also selling healthcare assets from earlier portfolios. Last month it sold 16 German nursing homes to a consortium led by the Burkart-Group in a share deal, for an undisclosed price.

The portfolio of 2,300 beds across Germany – mainly in Berlin – includes most of the remaining assets in the Sireo Immobilienfonds No 5. Corpus Sireo sold 12 of that fund’s assets earlier this year to E&G Funds & Asset Management. The firm said that the Luxembourg-registered vehicle (a SICAF-FIS) was its first-ever healthcare fund. Launched in 2006, the fund held 46 assets, all of which bar four assets have been sold - and they will be sold before the end of the year.

The Singen-based Burkart-Gruppe bought the portfolio together with Frankfurt investor KS Immobilien. The deal is to expected to be finalised by the end of August.

Corpus Sireo operates as an asset manager, residential broker and developer with a focus on Germany and nine other European countries. The firm also acts as a co-investment partner in pan-European investments. Together with its sister companies in Switzerland, France and Germany, it manages real estate worth €62bn.

In further news on the German nursing home market, German insurer Gothaer and E&G Funds & Asset Management, a subsidiary of Stuttgart-based private bank Ellwanger & Geiger, are providing equity for a new German nursing home Spezialfonds. It will have a target volume of €200m and starts with 12 seed assets.

The fund will operate without resorting to debt, and starts with a portfolio of over 1,500 nursing home beds across Germany, according to a fund sheet from E&G. When it bought the assets from the Corpus Sireo Health Care I fund, operator Casa Reha took out new lease contracts with a 20-year maturity. Five of the assets are located in Lower Saxony, three in Rhineland Palatinate and one each in Baden-Württemberg, Saarland, Saxony-Anhalt and Schleswig-Holstein.

“Casa Reha and the new owner will invest into the buildings together in order to be able to offer modern care support in a high-quality facility in the future,” the sheet said. The fund will be advised by Cologne-based sector specialist Terranus.

Meanwhile, Belgian nursing home investor Aedifica has bought a further five-unit nursing home portfolio in Germany. It paid €60m for the five properties with 657 beds, operated by Vitanas. This brings its German portfolio up to 20 facilities in Germany. The newly added properties in Halberstadt, Uehlfeld, Nuremberg, Höchstadt, and Berlin are bundled in two Luxembourg companies, which were recently sold by a Corpus Sireo fund to the Burkart Group (see above), the parent company of Vitanas, who would seem to have immediately resold the assets.