Aberdeen makes first RE investment in Finland

Following Carlyle’s first investment in the country, Aberdeen’s pan-Nordic fund has acquired a €108m portfolio in Tampere and Jyväskylä.

Aberdeen Property Investors, the Sweden based property division of Aberdeen Asset Management, has acquired a €108 million ($147 million) portfolio of five office properties located in Tampere and Jyväskylä in Finland.

The investment is the first in Finland for Aberdeen’s SICAV Pan-Nordic Fund, which has so far invested in 14 properties across the Nordic countries with a total value of €460 million. The fund, which was launched last Autumn, has raised a total of approximately €430 million in equity from domestic and international investors. The next closing is expected on September 27, 2007. The fund has a target investment size of €1.5 billion.

This latest transaction in Finland comes after the fund’s recent acquisition of four office properties and developments in Norway for a total value of some €216 million. Aberdeen Property Investors has also recently opened an office in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Trygve Sletteberg, Fund Manager of Aberdeen Property Funds SICAV Pan-Nordic, said the fund’s aim is to develop a highly diversified property portfolio in the Nordic countries, and to a lesser extent, in the Baltic States.

“We see strong potential for further increases in value in these properties over time,” said Sletteberg. “We expect the Nordic region to provide stronger returns than property in other western European countries due to both the strong macro-economic environment and strong property fundamentals.”

Finland has been a hotbed of real estate activity recently. Just this week Carlyle made its first real estate acquision in the country. Finland-based Capman recently closed its second real estate fund on €150 million, and this week it acquired a shopping center development in Turku.