Greenman OPEN, Germany’s largest food retail-focused investment fund, finished up the year with two significant deals which brought the value of its German ‘Fachmarktzentrum’ portfolio of retail parks to over €700m.
The latest deal saw the Irish company buying a planned hybrid retail development in the city of Homberg (Efze), near Bad Hersfeld in northern Hesse, for €35m, from the developer Schoofs Immobilien GmbH Frankfurt. The asset is scheduled for completion in November 2020 and will comprise 11,935 sqm, with 17 tenants (among them REWE and ALDI as anchor tenants) and a combined weighted average remaining lease term of around 13 years.
Earlier in the month Greenman Open had bought a portfolio of five food-anchored retail properties for a total of €112m. The properties, anchored by Kaufland, have a total area of 71,400 sqm and are located in north-east Germany. Kaufland generates 74% of the annual rent-roll of the portfolio, and now becomes the fund’s third-largest tenant after EDEKA and REWE.
On that deal, Greenman’s head of acquisitions James McEvoy said, 'By acquiring these, recently unloved, centres and extending our relationship with Kaufland we look forward to solidifying these centres’ position in their catchment for the long term.'
The latest deal in Homberg, could be the first in a stream of projects being delivered by specialist Schoofs. McEvoy said, ‘The addition of another REWE-anchored property complements the fund’s existing portfolio of real estate assets and heralds the beginning of a new relationship with Schoofs, one of Germany’s leading developers of food retail anchored neighbourhood centres and retail parks.’ Berlin-based lawyers BK-Law represented long-term client Greenman on the deal, including the structuring and the financing.
