- Acquisition of three assets, located near Duisburg (Rheinberg), Dortmund (Bergkamen) and Karlsruhe (Malsch), completes portfolio – fund is fully invested
- The portfolio has a combined lettable area of around 100,000 square metres
- Warburg-HIH Invest preparing to launch next logistics fund soon
Hamburg, 29 June 2021 – Warburg-HIH Invest Real Estate GmbH (“Warburg-HIH Invest”) just completed the portfolio construction of its “Warburg-HIH Deutschland Logistik Invest” institutional fund by acquiring three logistics properties from Goodman that are DGNB-certified as green buildings and occupied on long-term leases. With this deal closed, the fund’s total equity in the amount of 280 million euros is now invested. Together with the debt capital, the fund has a total volume of approximately 470 million euros. The three latest additions bring the number of properties held by the vehicle up to 13, the average remaining lease term being around nine years. Due to keen demand among institutional investors, Warburg-HIH Invest is planning to launch a successor fund in the near future. The investment house is already in the process of screening suitable logistics developments.
“The fund met with very lively interest among our investors. It only took us about one year to complete the fundraising process, and the equity is fully invested now. We offer our investors a diversified portfolio with stable earnings. Since demand on the investor side remains high, and since we have other interesting assets in our pipeline, we will launch another logistics real estate fund with a similar structure before long,” said Carsten Demmler, Managing Director at Warburg-HIH Invest. “We are planning to invest c. 150 million euros in logistics real estate on behalf of our fund during the second half of 2021,” Demmler went on to say.
“The fund assets include the European distribution centre of Boeing as well as several future-ready last-mile logistics properties that have been rented by Amazon, among others. The blue-chip tenant mix of established logistics operators and the locations in economically strong logistics regions of Germany also help us to further diversify our fund portfolio,” added Alexander Eggert, another Managing Director at Warburg-HIH Invest.
The logistics property in Rheinberg near Duisburg has a gross lettable area of around 12,700 square metres and was completed in 2015. Its sole tenant is HAVI Logistics, a logistics service provider with Europe-wide market leadership in the food service industry. The Duisburg metro area is generally very attractive for the logistics sector: When combining all private and public port areas, Duisburg is home to the world’s largest inland port, and therefore has a very high density of logistics assets, serving as logistics hot spot and a gateway for the European hinterland.
The property in Bergkamen—located near Dortmund on the eastern edge of the Ruhr—was also constructed in 2015. It extends over around 40,300 square metres and is let to Deutsche Post. Being a vast conurbation both populous and highly industrialised, the Ruhr generates a high revenue potential for logistics service providers. The potential is further enhanced by the presence of inter-regional distribution centres of food and non-food in-store retailers. Many e-commerce and food production players have moved into the eastern part of the Ruhr as well.
The third new asset is located in Malsch near Karlsruhe and has a gross lettable area of around 46,000 square metres. Sole tenant of the property, which was raised in 2011, is Seifert Logistics. From its site in Malsch, the company despatches just-in-time deliveries for the automotive production at the Daimler plants in Rastatt and Gaggenau, either of which are about 15 km away from the investment property.
The buyer-side legal due diligence reviews for the acquisitions were conducted by Norton Rose Fulbright LLP in Frankfurt am Main, the commercial due diligence by CBRE. The tax due diligence reviews for the properties were undertaken by Boege Rohde Luebbehesen and KPMG. Responsible for the technical and ESG due diligence reviews was REC Partners.
“The fund met with very lively interest among our investors. It only took us about one year to complete the fundraising process, and the equity is fully invested now. We offer our investors a diversified portfolio with stable earnings. Since demand on the investor side remains high, and since we have other interesting assets in our pipeline, we will launch another logistics real estate fund with a similar structure before long. We are planning to invest c. 150 million euros in logistics real estate on behalf of our fund during the second half of 2021.”
Carsten Demmler, Managing Director Warburg-HIH Invest
“The fund assets include the European distribution centre of Boeing as well as several future-ready last-mile logistics properties that have been rented by Amazon, among others. The blue-chip tenant mix of established logistics operators and the locations in economically strong logistics regions of Germany also help us to further diversify our fund portfolio.”
Alexander Eggert, Managing Director Warburg-HIH Invest
