BNP Paribas REIM Germany and Cording Real Estate has sold the Media Tower property located at Dusseldorf Medienhafen to special fund CONREN Land. The high-rise was originally purchased in 2016 for the Real Value Fund, which BNP Paribas REIM Germany co-manages together with the Cording Real Estate Group. The fund’s manage-to-core approach proved particularly effective in tapping the potential of the property. After purchasing the high-rise, the fund repositioned it on the market and was able to reduce the office vacancy rate by over 50%.
The Media Tower is a 64-meter high-rise encompassing about 9,000m² across 18 storeys. Roughly 400m² are dedicated to restaurant use on the ground floor with 7,600m² of office space on the upper floors. The building also houses about 800m² of archive space. The building’s occupants have access to 115 parking spaces located at the neighbouring property. The asset features a flexible layout that can be adjusted to meet specific tenant requirements. The purchase price was not disclosed.
“Based on the IRR method we generated a yield of roughly 18% with this investment over the course of a four-year holding period. This is an excellent example of the potential to be found in the current market environment by taking an active management approach with a competent fund management team”, explained Claus Thomas, CEO of BNP Paribas REIM Germany. “That is why in the current low-interest environment institutional investors are showing considerable interest in value-add assets with the potential to be repositioned as core investments. In light of this, we have also decided to increase our equity capital target for the fund to €250m. We are currently negotiating the purchase of a new property to reinvest the capital made available by the recent sale. Further acquisitions are planned”.