QUEST Investment Partners has acquired the former Deutsche Bahn headquarters at Stephensonstrasse 1 in Frankfurt's Europaviertel district for a fund of funds of an occupational pension scheme. The acquisition is carried out via a newly established institutional AIF, which is managed by INTREAL as the AIFM. The property, which comprises 51,000m² of rental space and is considered an architectural icon of Brutalism, is now to be repositioned. It has only recently been declared a listed monument. Constructed in 1993, the property will be transferred to the new AIF under a leasehold agreement. QUEST will be modernising the distinctive property and re-letting the spaces on behalf of the AIF. The rental agreement with Deutsche Bahn, which had been using the building for almost 30 years, expired at the end of March 2021.
Roland Holschuh, Managing Partner at QUEST Funds, commented: “We firmly believe in the long-term potential of this outstanding property. Its conservation is absolutely worthwhile, if only for sustainability and architectural reasons. We have structured this transaction in such a way as to combine the interests of first-time investors with those of the new institutional investor. While the new AIF secures a unique and stable long-term asset through the early entry, the existing retail fund receives attractive and secure ground rent."
