One of Europe’s leading real estate investment managers has made its first Dutch investment. The deal will also allow AEW Europe to develop the warehouse site at Helmond.
The purchase — made on behalf of AEW’s LOGISTIS fund — includes a group of three premium logistics properties totalling 538,195 sq ft. The warehouses were bought from District54, the development business of Van Berlo Vastgoed, for €40m (£28.3m), representing a gross acquisition yield of 6.9 per cent.
Strategically located 15km from Eindhoven at the junction of the A2 and A67 motorways, DC Helmond is made up of three warehouses of 193,750 sq ft 182,986 sq ft and 161,458 sq ft.
All the premises, developed between 2004 and 2013, are fully let to Schneider Electric with a minimum lease term of five years. Helmond is the global energy management company’s key logistics hub serving the EMEA region.
As part of the deal, AEW Europe has signed a development agreement to give it the opportunity to extend the buildings for Schneider Electric. It is also looking at the possibility of building further schemes at DC Helmond.
Remy Vertupier is fund manager for AEW Europe LOGISTIS. “The income stream provided by the existing assets, together with the development potential at DC Helmond and elsewhere with District54, makes this transaction a highly attractive investment opportunity as LOGISTIS consolidates its growing position in Continental Europe by expanding into the Netherlands,” he explained.
“We have a strong pipeline of prospective deals in place and we expect to announce further acquisitions in the coming weeks and months as we continue to deploy the capital available to us.”
In 1999 AEW Europe was one of the first real estate investment managers to offer a targeted logistics fund and has since built up its LOGISTIS portfolio of Grade A logistics assets to close on 20m sq ft across France, Italy, Spain, Benelux, Germany and central Europe.
LOGISTIS’s first Dutch purchase follows investments earlier this year in Germany and central Europe and takes the fund’s 2015 acquisitions to more than €400m (£283.6).
AEW Europe and District54 were advised by Jones Lang LaSalle.
