LaSalle Investment Management has sold of an office property in Ratingen, near Dusseldorf in Germany, to BNP Paribas Real Estate Investment Management (BNP Paribas REIM). LaSalle has actively managed the property over its long-term hold period. The principal tenant, Coca Cola, decided to relocate their headquarters in 2012 and moved out before their lease expired. Subsequently, the asset had to be restructured to a multi-tenant building and an office lease agreement with a fashion retailer as an anchor tenant, who remained in 3,900m² over 4 floors of the premises until the end of September 2019 and accounted for 40% of the rent. Since October 2019 large parts of the vacated floors have been re-let to a variety of companies.
The property, which was one of the first LEED platinum-certified buildings in Germany, comprises two modern high-quality office buildings, of seven and five storeys respectively; these are connected by a ground-floor canteen and a two-storey underground carpark, with a combined area of over 11,300m². Located in North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, and near Düsseldorf, one of Europe’s leading commercial real estate markets, the asset is highly accessible with excellent connections to several major highways, close proximity to the airport and links to public transport in the form of suburban rail and underground services. A steady increase in office take-up drove the region’s vacancy rate to record lows in 2019 and supported the property’s strong performance under LaSalle’s ownership.
Uwe Rempis, Managing Director and Fund Manager of LaSalle E-REGI, said: “We are pleased to have successfully sold the Zwei-Scheiben-Haus in Ratingen after delivering on our strategy of a long-term hold period and active asset management. The deal represents another strong contribution to the positive risk-adjusted returns we continue to generate for investors in LaSalle E-REGI. In this case, we will reinvest the sales proceeds into our residential allocation in order to further improve our diversification.”
