Ghelamco Group, advised by Cushman & Wakefield, has sold the PwC campus close to Brussels Airport in Belgium to an international financial institution for €131.7m. The buyer, continuing its global expansion, appointed Lanesbrook as its advisor to support the acquisition.
The Assar Architects designed office building, arranged over 11 floors with a total office floorspace of 30,164m² as well as nine roof terraces totalling a further 3,741m², is fully let to professional services firm PwC Belgium and MeetDistrict, the boutique co-working provider. PwC Belgium has pre-let more than 75% of the BREEAM Excellent-rated building on a 15-year lease into a high-quality, new development with flexibility and occupier wellbeing at its heart.
Located to the North-East of the Brussels-Capital Region in the Airport business district which is home to an increasing number of multinational corporates, the PwC campus benefits from excellent visibility along the ring road and will also enjoy a strong boost in public transportation accessibility in the coming years. It is situated in a prominent position alongside the train line between Brussels North and Brussels Airport stations, the Brussels ring road and a new tram-bus line due to open in 2023, as well as excellent access to the cycle network and parking for 760 vehicles.
Hassan Farran, Head of Middle East Capital Markets in Cushman & Wakefield’s EMEA Capital Markets Team, said: “This is an exemplary office building let to a quality tenant in one of Europe’s most strategically important cities, marking it out as extremely attractive to international capital which continues to have a significant appetite for long income assets across Europe.”
Andy Lemmens, from Cushman & Wakefield’s Capital Markets Office team in Belgium, said: “With vacancy rates for the grade A office space in Brussels currently close to zero, the quality of this exceptional Ghelamco development represented a unique opportunity to invest into a thriving area and has delivered an excellent outcome.”
Michael Gheysens, Managing Director, Ghelamco Belgium, said: “Ghelamco is delighted to have successfully completed this transaction. This landmark building, located in a particularly dynamic and multi-modal business environment, meets all contemporary requirements of sustainability and energy efficiency. A future-oriented work environment that puts the user first. The new headquarters of PWC is a model of the future working environment where employees and visitors are central. Ghelamco is strongly committed to this airport environment and already has subsequent initiatives in the pipeline.”
Naseer Aka, Managing Partner at Lanesbrook, commented: “This is the first acquisition that we have advised on under the Lanesbrook banner. I am pleased to have advised our client on their acquisition of an asset with this build quality, tenant profile and location. The acquisition validates our belief that quality assets with secure income profiles will continue to attract institutional capital and will offer a hedge against the types of risks encountered in 2020, with the pandemic leading to stress on tenants failing to make timely rental payments. A brand new headquarter building for a global brand is just the type of asset that we typically look to invest in, and this asset ticked all the right boxes for us, our client and our lenders.”
