Three modern office buildings in Germany are the first acquisitions of global property funds manager Rubicon Asset Management’s Rubicon Europe Trust, which listed on the Australian Stock Exchange on Friday under the ticker REU.
An initial public offer on the trust that closed last week raised approximately $256 million and these funds, along with debt, will be used to acquire 95 per cent of the $585 million portfolio of high-quality offices, two of which are located in Frankfurt with the third in Berlin.
The properties have a 97 per cent occupancy rate with long leases averaging over 10 years. The purchases were negotiated off-market at a 2.9 per cent discount to valuation and an 11 per cent discount to the replacement cost.
Rubicon established the platform in Germany because of the country’s status as the largest economy in Europe, its office-intensive financial services and government sectors, and signs of a recovery in real estate markets and the broader economy.
The company has appointed DTZ, a European firm which advised on more than €10 billion of capital transactions in Europe last year, under a five year exclusive agreement to source real estate acquisition targets for the trust.
Forecast annualised distribution yields on the trust are 9.00 per cent for the first year, and 9.25 per cent for the year ending December 31, 2007.
In other news, Babcock and Brown Infrastructure this morning made an offer to purchase the second largest port in the United Kingdom, PDP Ports, for around $800 million.
The board of PD Ports has unanimously recommended the offer, with a sale expected to be completed in the new year.
