Saturday, August 22, 2009

Finnair Completes EUR 77 Million Sale Leaseback of Four Properties Near Helsinki-Vantaa Airport

PropertyEU - August 20, 2009

Property broker Newsec has advised Finnair Group's facilities division in the sale-and-leaseback of four properties in the vicinity of Helsinki-Vantaa Airport for EUR 77 mln.

The assets were sold to NV Property Fund I Ky.

The properties comprise Aircraft Hangar 7, the Ground Handling Fleet Centre, the Ground Equipment Maintenance Unit and the Training Centre. The properties will be leased by Finnair Facilities Management Oy and the users of the facilities are various business units of Finnair. The leased area totals around 60,000 m2.

The transaction was part of a financing programme announced earlier by Finnair. 'We see NV Property Fund I Ky as a reliable and desired long-term partner. We are very pleased with the cooperation within all parties in the arrangement,' said Mika Stirkkinen, Group treasurer of Finnair.

Newsec said the acquisition was also a significant step for the fund of NV Kiinteistösijoitus, as the volume of its investments increase to over EUR 300 mln. 'We are privileged to have such a remarkable actor, as Finnair is, as a tenant. The properties with long net lease agreements represent the general focus of our fund,' said Kari Louhenkilpi, the managing director of NV Kiinteistösijoitus

The fund is owned by Nordea Life Assurance Finland Ltd (45%), Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Co (45%) and the State Pension Fund (10%). Sphere: Related Content

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Syngenta Seeds HQ Near Minneapolis Sold for $28.4 Million

Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal - August 17, 2009

Opus Northwest on Monday sold a newly built Minnetonka office building for about $30 million to CB Richard Ellis Realty Trust, a firm based in Princeton, N.J., according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

The 116,300-square-foot building, called Crest Ridge Corporate Center I, is leased to Syngenta Seeds Inc., a division of Basel, Switzerland-based Syngenta International. Syngenta's lease runs through June 2019.

CB Richard Ellis Realty Trust said in the filing that it bought the building, at 11055 Wayzata Blvd., for $28.4 million plus closing costs.

The building and its attached 430-stall parking ramp is at the southeast quadrant of Hopkins Crossroad and Interstate 394. Work was finished on the building in June.

Syngenta is moving about 250 workers into the building from various sites around the Twin Cities, including its former headquarters on Highway 55 in Golden Valley. It has about 500 workers in the state, according to a spokesman for Syngenta.

Opus Northwest is marketing Phase II of the corporate center on an as-yet undeveloped, similar-sized adjacent site.

Opus Northwest is a division of Opus Corp., also based in Minnetonka, which has had some of its other regional divisions around the country file for bankruptcy amid a national downturn in the market for commercial real estate.

The property was marketed for sale by Tom Holtz and Steven Buss from the Bloomington office of CB Richard Ellis.

This is the second notable purchase in the Twin Cities by CB Richard Ellis Realty Trust this summer. In July, it bought an industrial building in Rogers that is leased to Deerfield, Ill.-based Walgreen Co. for $15.34 million.

(Note: SEC Edgar prospectus supplement dated August 17, 2009 filed by CB Richard Ellis Realty Trust estimates that the acquisition cap rate for the Crest Ridge property was 8.7%.) Sphere: Related Content

Sunday, August 09, 2009

Credit Suisse Nearing £150 Million Sale Leaseback of Canary Wharf HQ

Property Week - August 7, 2009

An investment company backed by the former prime minister of Lebanon is in pole position to carry out a purchase and leaseback of one of Credit Suisse’s buildings in London’s Docklands.

M1 Real Estate is leading a consortium of Lebanese investors that is thought to have placed the 258,314 sq ft 20 Columbus Courtyard under offer for more than £150m – a yield of less than 6%. Credit Suisse will lease back the property for 25 years.

M1 Real Estate is a Monaco-based property company and an affiliate of parent company M1 Group, which was founded by the former Lebanese prime minister, Najib Mikati, and his brother.

The deal is another example of overseas investors believing the UK offers good value. This week an Australian fund has placed under offer a stake in the Bullring, Birmingham, and a German fund has bought Centrium in London’s Midtown.

M1 Real Estate has made other investments in central London. In March, it bought the Times Place building at 45 Pall Mall in London’s West End from Legal & General. It paid £56.5m, entirely in equity, for the 60,000 sq ft property at a net initial yield of 7.5%.

Credit Suisse has been assessing its sale-and-leaseback options on all of its buildings in London’s Docklands for more than three years.

In May this year it instructed CB Richard Ellis to market 20 Columbus Courtyard in a process dubbed ‘Project Hunter’. The guide price was around £147m, reflecting an initial yield of 6.25%. It offered the building on a freehold or long-leasehold basis with a guaranteed 25-year lease to Credit Suisse Securities.

The tenant has two options to extend the lease for five years. The rent will be reviewed annually on a Retail Prices Index-linked increase with a ‘cap and collar’ maximum and minimum increase of 4% and 1.5%, respectively. The current rent is £37.50/sq ft.

Credit Suisse received 20 formal bids from parties attracted by the size of the property and the guaranteed rent rises.

The purchase and leaseback is thought to be part of M1’s long-term strategy to build a global portfolio of prime assets in large cities.

Moustapha El-Solh, chief executive of M1 Real Estate, said after the purchase of Times Place that, ‘although the London real estate market, like many cities around the world, is currently seeing one of its worst downturns, we believe that making investments in prime assets with strong fundamentals is a sound long-term strategy.’

M1’s portfolio includes investments in the US, Europe and the Middle East.

Credit Suisse is also considering the sale and leaseback of other buildings it owns in London’s Docklands. Sphere: Related Content

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