Valor Real Estate Partners has acquired four urban warehouse assets, in Lyon and Berlin, for a total consideration of €50m. Supporting its pan-European growth ambitions, Valor has also appointed Michael Vidamant and Flavien Caminati as Senior Vice Presidents in France and Korbinian Kirchner as Senior Vice President in Germany.
In Corbas, a prime submarket in East Lyon, Valor has acquired a 10,000m² urban logistics park, currently 90% occupied by 11 tenants primarily in the 3PL sector. Valor intends to undertake a light refurbishment of the park should the tenants vacate their unit, including increasing the asset’s functionality and improving the environmental performance.
Also in East Lyon, in the Chassieu submarket, Valor has acquired a vacant 5,000m² logistics warehouse, from a private seller. Valor intends to undertake a full refurbishment, due to complete in June 2023, to deliver a highly functional cross-dock asset suitable for 3PL and specialist last-mile operators.
Both properties are located 6 kilometres from the Lyon ring road, and offer excellent accessibility to Lyon’s Northern, Eastern and Southern neighbourhoods via the A46 and A43, and the wider Rhone logistics region via the A7, connecting Lyon and Marseille.
In Ahrensfelde, a Berlin sub-market located north-east of the city centre, Valor has acquired a 43,000m² site, comprising four warehouse units totalling circa 19,000 sqm. Occupied by Bergman and Franz, a wholesaler of bathroom and kitchen equipment, the property is strategically located in close proximity to Berlin’s A10 outer ring road.
In a second East Berlin transaction, Valor has added a 19,900m² site comprising two distribution warehouses in a short-term sale and leaseback from a private seller. Located in Neuenhagen, less than 35 minutes’ drive time from Berlin’s city centre, the highly functional warehouses are suitable for a range of occupiers spanning the SME, 3PL and light manufacturing sectors.
Camila Malzkorn, Vice President, commented: “As one of the most dynamic e-commerce markets globally, Berlin is one of our high conviction markets where we are aiming to significantly grow our footprint. Alongside Frankfurt and Hamburg, we see the strong fundamentals of population growth and a shortage of last-mile distribution space offering sizable opportunity for highly experienced managers. These transactions, alongside our new speculative development close to Berlin city centre, underlines our ability to identify and execute opportunities across the risk spectrum in order aggregate scale and ultimately meet increasing demand from the retail and distribution sectors.”
Ben Brunschwig, Senior Vice President, added: “Lyon is one of Europe’s dominant urban centres, which is experiencing year-on-year population growth and where we are seeing former industrial land allocated for housing and other uses, restricting future development of logistics space. Leveraging our deep relationships has allowed us to acquire two super prime assets in areas of limited supply, where we anticipate strong rental and capital value growth.”
