This Week's Europe Deal Sheet

UBS Triton Property Fund bought Orient House, a 184-bedroom student accommodation development in Fulham, West London, from Imperial College London for £31.5M.

Orient House offers 58k SF over seven floors, with 173 ensuite bedrooms and 11 studio apartments.

UK

Hunter Real Estate Investment Managers became the first landlord to let a former BHS Store in Scotland on a long-term basis. Aldi will take the 20k SF unit at Cameron Toll Shopping Centre in Edinburgh on a 20-year lease. The global supermarket chain is expected to open in 2017. There are 164 former BHS stores in the UK, 16 of which are in Scotland. Eric Young & Co. represented Hunter in the lettings, while Coates & Co. represented Aldi.

***

Bristol City Council approved LGIM Real Assets’ 255-unit build-to-rent scheme, ND7, in Bristol city centre. ND7 forms part of a wider £200M investment by Legal & General in Bristol. It is also behind the new Glass Wharf office development, which the HMRC will be moving into.  

***

Newcastle Building Society purchased the premises it leases at 21 Cobalt Park in North Tyneside for an undisclosed price from Highbridge Properties. The building comprises 99k SF of office space at Cobalt Park and will provide additional space for the Society, which created 118 new jobs last year, to grow further.

***

An unnamed major European investor awarded a $500M mandate to M&G Real Estate to invest in UK real estate. The mandate will seek direct real estate investment opportunities across all main property types in primary markets in the UK.

***

Handelsbanken will be opening at 297 King’s Road in an estate owned by Sloane Stanley this March. The Sweden-based "relationship bank" will form one of Handelsbanken’s 207 UK branches. Sloane Stanley and Handelsbanken represented themselves.

***

Lothbury Investment Management sold its 28k SF office holding at 52 Bedford Row, London WC1, to a private overseas investor for £28.2M. Lothbury owned it from 2001, and completely redeveloped the building behind the existing façade in 2002 and 2003 as part of its active development portfolio. It is let to law firm Wedlake Bell LLP with a lease expiry in December 2018. Cushman & Wakefield acted for Lothbury; Michael Elliot acted for the purchaser.

FINLAND

TH Real Estate acquired a 50% stake in the Kamppi Centre, a prime shopping centre in Helsinki from Barings Real Estate. The 50% stake values the centre at over €500M. With nearly 400k SF of retail and leisure, the Kamppi Centre features several prime retail brands, including Levi’s, Calvin Klein, Mango, Stadium and Clas Ohlson.  

***

Genesta sold its office property Atomitie 5 to Areim Fund III. Atomitie 5 is in the Pitäjänmäki area in western Helsinki. During Genesta’s ownership the property has been refurbished and today it is a modern office property supported by on-site catering and conference center services.

GERMANY

Peakside Capital signed a raft of new leases at Forum Landsberger Allee, its 377k SF mixed-use office, retail and hotel scheme in the Prenzlauer Berg district in Berlin. REWE, the German supermarket chain, and DM, the cosmetics and healthcare chain, joined the Vienna House Easy hotel as retail anchor tenants, following a programme of successful repositioning of the scheme that saw the 75k SF retail element reconfigured. These new lettings take the Forum Landsberger close to 100% let. Other tenants at the scheme include the Leonardo Hotel administration and the Berlin Kindergarten administration.

NORWAY

Avignon Capital sold Østensjøveien 27, a prime office building in Oslo, for €61M, producing an 87% return on equity. The property has been sold to Malling & Co Eiendomsond AS, a pure-equity fund, in an off-market transaction. Østensjøveien 27 comprises 180k SF of open-plan office accommodation, arranged over six floors. It is in Helsfy district, close to the city centre of Oslo and near several public transportation hubs.

ITALY

Ardian Real Estate acquired six offices owned by Prelios SGR, an Italian real estate fund. The deal is the first investment in Italy made by Ardian Real Estate Europe Fund and follows the acquisition of Wappenhalle, the office and business park complex in Munich, completed in November 2016. 

SPAIN 

Thor Equities closed on the acquisition of 5 Puerta del Sol in Madrid for €43M. The building features two vacant retail units totalling more than 10k SF. Puerta del Sol is home to several new flagship stores, including Apple, Top Shop, Sephora and Women’s Secret.