German fund manager Sireo increased its exposure to the UK this week when it bought a European sale-and-leaseback portfolio from West LB.
Sireo, which is a relative newcomer to the UK, paid between €130m and €150m for 11 properties, including West LB’s former headquarters at 51 Moorgate, EC2.
The other properties are in Germany, France, Hong Kong, Italy, Turkey and Luxembourg, with an average lease length of around five years.
The non-German properties will be put into Sireo Immobilienfonds No 4 SICAV, which in June bought Eastcheap Court, EC3, for £40m. The German properties will be sold on in the near future.
West LB instructed Cushman & Wakefield to market the portfolio in March, in order to increase its flexibility across its estate and release capital to invest in its core banking activities (18 March, p32).
C&W’s co-head of occupier strategy for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Matthew Stone, said: “This is another example of what occupiers can do in the global real estate capital markets and there are more deals stacking up behind this one.”
