For its DEGI INTERNATIONAL fund, the real estate investment manager DEGI Deutsche Gesellschaft für Immobilienfonds mbH is investing around €40 million in an office project in Saint Quentin en Yvelines within the metropolitan region of Île-de-France.
In a sale-and-lease-back procedure, DEGI is acquiring the project development package, fully let in advance, from the subsequent user Assystem, a leading international group in the field of engineering and innovation consultancy.
With reference to the full investment amount and DEGI INTERNATIONAL's current portfolio, covering nine different countries, this investment will upsize its proportion of French properties to 32.5%.
The L-shaped building, with a total area of 11,088 m², is accessed by two core areas, and features five floors above ground plus a two-story underground car park and a restaurant for employees. Divisible stories would enable the property also to be let in small sections. Completion of the office building is scheduled for the third quarter of 2008.
The location is conveniently situated for transport access: 200 metres away is a station connecting to the suburban railway network (RER) of the Paris metropolitan region. The slip-roads to the A12 and A13 motorways are about one kilometre away.
Center of France's service industry
The Paris conurbation, France's business and financial center, accounts for around 80% of all jobs in the country's service sector, and thus benefits particularly from the upturn in France's domestic economy, a trend also reflected in the shrinking level of vacancies on the office market of Saint Quentin en Yvelines to the south-west of Paris, which totals about 1.3 million m². New and high-quality office space is meanwhile scarce there, since the vacancies in this submarket are concentrated in older buildings, and in fact were well-nigh halved in 2006, to 4.9%.
Source: Allianz
