Valad Europe has formed a €500m (£390m) joint venture to target diversified Dutch property.
In partnership with an institutional investor, the Valad Netherlands Diversified Partnership has purchased the €140m UNO portfolio to seed the new venture.
That portfolio covers 571,000 sq ft of office space and 65,000 sq ft of retail space over six assets sold by Unibail-Rodamco.
The VNDP has an initial gross asset value target of €500m to invest in core plus assets in the office, industrial and out-of-town retail sectors.
It is seeded with €200m of equity and aims for a 60% to 70% leverage ratio to acquire assets worth between €10m and €100m.
Debt financing will be sourced from a pool of lenders with existing links to Valad Europe.
ING provided financing for the UNO portfolio purchase.
Valad Europe head of corporate development and operations Christian Bearman said: “We are pleased to be partnering with an investor who shares our desire to capitalise on this window of opportunity in the Dutch real estate market. Valuations and occupancy levels in certain sub-markets of the Netherlands are currently out of sync with the underlying economic recovery, providing an attractive counter cyclical opportunity for the Valad Netherlands Diversified Partnership to invest on a large scale in high-quality offices, industrial and out-of-town retail assets in specific strategic locations.”
Valad Benelux head Mark McLaughlin said: “The UNO portfolio is a good example of the type of investments we are targeting for VNDP. Our local team on the ground is actively seeking attractive investments and we look forward to finding suitable deals which meet VNDP’s investment criteria and where we can apply value-add asset management strategies in order to generate attractive returns in the medium term.”
The launch comes soon after it started a similar vehicle targeting central European retail assets in October.
