The Carlyle Group has announced that it has completed the sale of six buildings in Italy for approximately 100 million. The buildings were part of the Poseidon portfolio of 230 assets. In November 2004, Carlyle jointly acquired the portfolio with Immofinanz from San Paolo IMI for 320 million. The buildings were all based in northeast Italy.
This transaction executed by the Carlyle real estate team based in Milan follows the investment strategy in Italy. At the time of the acquisition in November, Carlyle announced that it planned to sell a selection of the fully long-term leased properties in the next year as a portfolio and also plans to execute minor works and refurbishment on a number of the properties.
This transaction is the third sale of a portfolio of properties from the Poseidon portfolio. In December 2004, Carlyle sold a large portfolio of 197 properties to La Gaiana for 115.5 million and Carlyle sold four buildings in Bologna earlier this year for approximately 30 million.
There are 23 properties remaining in the Poseidon portfolio including residential and office buildings, mainly in northeast Italy.
"The Italian real estate market is still very dynamic at the moment, and there is a lot of interest for high quality buildings such as those in this transaction. This sale demonstrates our proactive approach to managing our property portfolio in Italy through asset refurbishment, repositioning and sales," said Guido Audagna, Managing Director, The Carlyle Group.
The investment was made from Carlyle Europe Real Estate Partners I. In Italy, the real estate team have also completed the acquisitions of the Venus portfolio, a 26-property portfolio from Beni Stabili in June 2005 with Operae for 255 million, the Jupiter portfolio in March 2003, and Via Chiusa, Milan which Carlyle refurbished and sold in September 2004.
Carlyle was advised by Lehman Brothers, Clifford Chance (legal) and DLA Piper, (fiscal advisor) and REAG (American appraisal for the due diligence).
Source: The Carlyle Group
