News from 03/21/2007
Carlyle: US fund buys office tower in Hannover
The US fund company Carlyle has acquired the last large commercial area in Hannover's Ihme-Zentrum. With it, complete ownership of the eleven story, 20,000 m² office tower on Ihmeplatz has passed over to the company. The property has been leased to the city. Carlyle now possesses 200,000 m² of retail, office, and residential area between the Linden Quarter and Calenberger Neustadt, the area where the complex in question is located.
Munich Re: €294mn return from property sale in the first quarter
End of November sale of residential and commercial properties by MEAG, a subsidiary of Munich Re, drove the company's 2007 first quarter results upwards. According to its financial statement, Munich Re achieved capital profits of €294mn from the sale of buildings and land, which will be transferred to the buyer by the end of February, with a book value of €217mn. In November, MEAG disclosed the sale of a property portfolio with a total value of around €1bn to Goldman Sachs' Whithall 2005 Funds and to Patrizia Immobilien AG.
Alstria: IPO shall finance further growth
At the beginning of April 2007, Hamburg's office property investor Alstria Office AG wants to go public. Alstria want to use proceeds from the IPO to stockpile its existing portfolio of office properties: In the next three years, annual investments of €500 to €700 are planned. Furthermore, Alstria wants to use capital from the IPO to finance a transaction agreed upon in December 2006 with UBS Kapitalanlagegesellschaft mbH. The portfolio in connection with this transaction includes eight office buildings from around Germany with a total area of 150,000 m². According to information being circulated in market circles, the purchase price is around €200mn. The properties were in the possession of UBS Real Estate's open property fund UBS Euroinvest Immobilien. Currently, the Alstria portfolio (without UBS' properties) includes 63 office buildings with a total area of around 620,000 m² and a value of around €1.38bn.
Measures, with which managers of open property funds reacted to the interim crisis of the asset category, are appearing to take hold. With capital flows of around €1.9, the funds ranked among the favorite fund categories again. The portfolios have been rejuvenated, and improved apropos of condition, configuration, and use. The share of open property funds situated in Germany has been reduced.
Sale of Berlin's Gewerbesiedlungsgesellschaft (GSG) is consummated. The Senate agreed to sell the firm for €308.7mn to a consortium consisting of the Orco Group and the Morgan Stanley Real Estate Fund. Furthermore, the investors took over outstanding debts of around €90mn.
Further details about the coalition's internal draft of the skeleton plan for high rises are being made available to the public.
Details of the transaction have been provided.
Plans for the TWS premises at Lautenschlagerstraße are now certain: From 2009, Bülow AG will begin construction of a new complex with 10,000 m² of office area and a four-star hotel at what is today the EnBW area. Investment volume amounts to €120mn.