AEW, announces that it has acquired the METRO distribution centre in Kirchheim an der Weinstraße, 85km south of Frankfurt in the Rhine Neckar region, on behalf of the LOGISTIS Fund. The transaction has been completed through a forward purchase from leading Hamburg based developer IXOCON. The asset is fully pre-let to the METRO Group on a long term lease.
Once completed and handed over to the tenant in June this year, the development will comprise a total of 49,500 m² of logistics space that is strategically located on the A6 motorway and will serve as METRO’s strategic distribution hub for south-west Germany.
The acquisition not only extends LOGISTIS’ presence in Germany, which now totals circa 220,000 m² of AUM, but also strengthens the Fund’s existing relationship with the METRO Group, a leading wholesale company in Europe.
LOGISTIS currently comprises over 2.5 million m² of prime logistics space, with an occupancy rate of c. 98%.
Rémy Vertupier, Fund Manager of LOGISTIS said: “Through this high-quality development project with Metro and IXOCON, we have successfully reinforced our footprint in the German market, which is of strategic importance to LOGISTIS. We look forward to further developing our relationship with IXOCON in Germany, as we continue to grow the LOGISTIS platform across European markets with the objective to reach a portfolio size of more than €3bn.”
The LOGISTIS platform was created 18 years ago, making AEW one of the first European investment managers to enter the logistics space, and since then it has developed a long term track record of outperforming its benchmark indices. LOGISTIS aims to provide investors with an attractive income return, with the current portfolio comprising c.75 Grade A logistics assets plus c. 25 under development - located across 40 sites in France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, the Czech Republic, Italy and Spain, with a total value of approximately €2.2bn.
AEW was advised by Greenberg Traurig and Gleeds and Ambiente.
