The Carlyle Group Acquires Major German Property Portfolio from Concordia
Frankfurt – The Carlyle Group, the global private equity firm, today announced that it has acquired a portfolio of properties from insurance group Concordia. The portfolio consists of 19 assets, distributed throughout Germany, with a total lettable area of approximately 42,400 m2.
Located mainly in the North West and South of Germany, the portfolio properties comprise 66% office, 21% residential, 9% retail and 4% storage space. 17 out of the 19 properties are in Western Germany, with 5 assets located in the top 7 German cities, representing the majority of the portfolio’s value.
Carlyle Europe Real Estate Partners (CEREP), the European real estate team of The Carlyle Group established in 2001, intends to improve the occupancy of the assets through active asset management. CEREP has also agreed lease-back terms with Concordia, as the group will continue to occupy a significant proportion of the portfolio.
Wulf Meinel, Managing Director, The Carlyle Group commented: “The acquired portfolio includes many superb buildings which will benefit from Carlyle’s strategy of pro-active asset management. Through a combination of property improvement and active marketing, we expect to significantly improve the occupancy of these buildings, many of which are in prime locations in major German cities such as Hamburg, Munich, Frankfurt, Hannover and Stuttgart.”
Carlyle is investing in this project through its second European real estate fund, Carlyle Europe Real Estate Partners II, a €760 million fund. The fund closed in September 2005 and is over 90% invested. In Germany the fund is predominantly invested in Hamburg, Hannover and Düsseldorf with a focus on development and refurbishment projects. The German portfolio exceeds 550,000 m2. The total investments of CEREP into European real estate are in excess of €5 billion.
Carlyle was advised by Pöllath & Partner (legal), Colliers (valuation) and King Sturge (technical). The transaction process was lead by Bayerische Landesbank, Structured Finance. Concordia was advised by the Hannover law firm Goemann.
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