In the German commercial real estate market, asset manager argoneo entered into new leases and renewed existing contracts for space totaling around 195,500 m² on behalf of its customers in 2010.
On the basis of square meterage leased, new leases account for around 28% and lease extensions for 72% of the result. In Hamburg's commercial real estate market, argoneo's total amount of newly leased space was 115,000 m², an increase of 28% compared with the year before (2009: 82,400 m²).
Overall, the leasing performance in 2010 was around 10% down on the previous year (2009: 217,900 m²). The decline is due to the drop in the total asset management volume managed by argoneo, which fell by around 19% last year to a current figure of around 1.4 million m² of real estate. The key drivers in this regard were the increased number of property sales, with seven transactions involving a total of 200,000 m² last year, as well as the company's strategic focus on the asset management of core properties. As part of this consolidation, argoneo had by mid-2010 already accepted asset management mandates for 42 core properties in Austria, Italy, France, Spain, Belgium, Luxembourg, Sweden, and the Netherlands, with space totaling 530,000 m².
The company has assigned the management of various portfolios with smaller commercial and logistics properties measuring 660,000 m² in total to its local asset management partner CORPUS SIREO, Heusenstamm.
Marcus Hientzsch, argoneo's Managing Director with responsibility for Asset Management: "Last year, we successfully sharpened our profile as a European-wide asset manager with strong expertise in core real estate and real estate sales. In 2011, we will continue on this path and look forward to a dynamic, exciting real estate year."
Source: argoneo Real Estate GmbH
