The Aberdeen European Balanced Property Fund has acquired a prime logistics property, near Helsinki-Vantaa airport, from EKE Group. EKE Group was the developer and builder of the property. The premises were built in phases in 2005 and 2008 and comprise of 31,000 m² of leasable space. The principle tenant is Suomen Logistiikkatalo Oy, Finland's leading logistics company and a subsidiary of Swedish Posten Logistik, an international logistics company owned by the Swedish Post.
Nico Tates, Fund Manager of the Aberdeen European Balanced Property Fund, commented: "During these uncertain times our strategy is to focus only on top-quality investments with strong covenants. This property combines an attractive yield and projected rental growth in Finnish logistics with a long lease from a strong tenant. Equally, we were able to secure mortgage financing at a competitive rate despite the credit squeeze, so we are very pleased with this transaction."
Antti Tikkanen, CFO of EKE Group, said: "This sale was part of our property development strategy. Our target is to develop and upgrade premises according to our tenants' needs and to make them tempting to the solvent investor. From the start, we developed these premises with the current tenant in mind and for the needs of similar major logistics service providers."
Aberdeen's European Balanced Property Fund is managed by Aberdeen Property Investors and invests in property in Finland, Belgium, France, and the Netherlands. In Finland the fund invests in office, retail and logistic premises. The fund has
