Peakside, Partners Group in joint deal for €550 office and logistics portfolio

Peakside Capital Advisors and Partners group have teamed up to buy a majority stake in a sizeable office and logistics property portfolio for €550m.The sellers were Austrian group Imfarr Beteiligungs and Swiss concern SN Beteiligungen Holding.

The portfolio – known as the Omega Portfolio – consists of 27 office and three logistics assets, mainly located in Germany with a few assets in Amsterdam and greater Paris. It had originally been part of a larger real estate portfolio that had been brought to the market a year ago.

The partners in the joint venture said they planned to work on a range of value creation opportunities, including repositioning several properties, to optimise the portfolio’s value.

According to Boris Schran, founding partner of Peakside Capital Advisors, “We have been interested in the Omega-Portfolio from the beginning. The transaction structure allowed us to secure the majority of the portfolio at our originally offered pricing. We see considerable upside potential for the assets. In particular, our joint venture plans the reduction of existing vacancies as well as repositioning of individual assets. The first measures are to be implemented shortly.”

For Partners Group, Lars Kreutzmann, co-head private real estate Europe, said: “This acquisition significantly expands our real estate portfolio in Germany and underlines the importance of the German market for us on a relative value basis.

“The portfolio benefits from attractive prime and secondary office locations and is a great fit with our value creation strategy, whereby we focus on properties that can benefit from repositioning with sufficient time and capital. We plan to undertake a multi-year value creation program to maximise value for our clients.”

Peakside, with more than 30 staff in five European offices and more than €1.5bn of AUM for institutionals and high net worth individuals, has traditionally focused on value-add and opportunistic investment, which this deal obviously falls into. The company has recently hired Frank Schäfer, whose job would seem to be to expand Peakside’s remit into the Core and Core-Plus segment and create corresponding fund products for institutionals, similar to his previous - albeit short-lived - position at Tishman Speyer, and before that, Credit Suisse Asset Management in Germany. (ssk)