Corestate buys 4,700 apartments in Germany

Swiss-based private equity real estate firm Corestate Capital is buying 4,700 apartments in Western Germany.

The firm, founded by former Cerberus Germany real estate head Ralph Winter, said the portfolio consisted of more than 300,000-square-metres of residential property.

Under the terms of the deal, a holding company controlled by Corestate will buy the properties from BGP Investment, which was recently spun-out of a joint venture between Australian companies Babcock & Brown and GPT Group.

Zug-based Coresate also said the properties came with €150 million of debt financing, and that the firm would implement a capital investment programme.

The transaction remains subject to consents from the existing financing parties, which must be obtained by the end of February 2010 for the transaction to complete successfully. 
                                               
Mark Dunstan, managing director of BGP, said this was the first transaction to be signed as part of its strategy to dispose of non-core property in Germany.

BGP Investments is a Luxembourg-based private company, which owns 30,000 flats and 996 smaller commercial units, as well as an industrial portfolio with 107 properties an estate of 52 retail properties. BGP expects to realise the assets in the next few years.