GE Commercial Finance Real Estate has entered the German public housing market with the purchase of the €190m HPE Hausbau Group.
The group, bought from Peabody Funds and managed by O’Connor Capital Partners, owns 4,400 homes in 10 cities in the Rhine-Ruhr region, the Rhineland-Palatinate region and Berlin. It also manages 3,000 homes for third-party investors.
GE said HPE had developed a track record for tenant privatisations and block sales.
It added that the deal would expand its German platform to enable it to focus on its core areas of residential privatisations, corporate outsourcing and non-performing loan portfolios.
GE has also concluded its first sale and leaseback in a €100m deal with private health care operator Marseille-Kliniken.
Separately, Oaktree Capital Management has finalised a deal to buy an 85% stake in Berlin housing company Gehag from HSH N Real Estate, a unit of HSH Nordbank, for an undisclosed sum. Bankers valued the company at around €1bn.
Gehag owns 18,000 homes and manages a further 7,000. It employs 700 staff and had revenues of €224m last year.
HSH N Real Estate will retain a 15% stake in the housing company for strategic purposes. “By maintaining a minority stake, HSH shows that it believes in the opportunities offered by the Berlin residential market,” said Peter Rieck, chairman of HSH N Real Estate’s supervisory board.
References: EGi News 08/04/05
