Listed Berlin-based residential property specialist GSW Immobilien has paid €147m for a portfolio of 2,600 apartments.
GSW bought the portfolio from Zentral Boden Immobilien, an initiator for closed-end funds.
The properties were part of the ZBI Professional 5 fund portfolio. Around 82% are in Berlin districts Neukölln, Mitte, Tempelhof-Schöneberg, Reinickendorf and Steglitz-Zehlendorf. The other units are in the cities of Duisburg, Essen, Erfurt, and Magdeburg.
The sale should be concluded by the end of the year.
“We plan to resell the 470 residential units outside of Berlin in the medium term,” GSW Immobilien management board member Jörg Schwagenscheidt said.
The purchase price equates to €970 per m2 overall and the average rent passing is €5.39 per m2 per month. However, the 2,130 Berlin properties have passing rents of €5.52 per m2 per month. The average apartment size in Berlin is around 58 m2.
With this acquisition and others made in October, GSW has added 7,000 apartments to its portfolio of which more than 6,500 are in Berlin.
GSW will finance the latest transaction using part of the net proceeds from an issue of convertible bonds and has now invested around €190m from its capital increase.
The acquisitions will affect only earnings from 2013 as the transfer of risks and rewards or ownership is to be completed at the turn of the year. The firm calculates an FFO contribution of €14.5m to €15.5m attributable to the acquisitions from 2013.
