Rockspring pulls in €50m for Europe fund, buys Berlin office

The real estate investment manager, currently targeting a €150m fundraise for its 1973-vintage open-ended vehicle, through which it recently bought Coca Cola’s Berlin HQ for €59m. 

Rockspring Property Investment Managers, the London-based real estate investment management firm, has raised €50 million of fresh capital for its pan-European open-ended vehicle.

The capital was sourced from an unnamed European institutional investor, which has not invested with the firm before, and puts the firm a third of the way towards its current target of €150 million. Once the current fundraising campaign is completed, the fund is projected to have a value of €650 million.

Rockspring said it was planning to invest the fund’s capital in core office, logistics and retail assets in key European growth markets – excluding the UK – and was intending to deploy it by the end of the third quarter.

The vehicle, Pan-European Property Limited Partnership, was established in 1973 and is one of Europe’s longest standing platforms.

Rockspring has also completed the purchase of Coca-Cola’s headquarters in Berlin in a €59 million deal. The 100,000 square foot office building, which is let to the soft drink giant for 11 years, is located in the Mediaspree district of the German capital.

“With an already stable investor base, most of which has now been with the fund for over 10 years, this fresh equity from a new investor represents a further strong endorsement of the fund and its core, evergreen strategy, and is a significant step forward in achieving our current capital raising objective,” said Flavio Casero, partner at Rockspring and manager of Pan-European Property Limited Partnership.

“It will be deployed in line with the fund’s strategy, which aims to deliver a low-risk dividend yield of five percent plus and a total, net-to-investor return of seven percent plus by targeting enduring locations across western and northern Europe, where supply/demand dynamics support further growth over time,” added Casero.

It is understood that the firm has around €250 million worth of deals in its pipeline, including off-market offices in Amsterdam, distribution centers in the Netherlands, urban logistics assets around major European cities and student housing in the Nordics.