Tishman Speyer has bought a €670 million ($851 million) package of properties from Germany’s Difa Deutsche Immobilien Fonds.
The New York-based developer and real estate investor, which owns landmark properties such as Rockefeller Center, has bought a portfolio of 10 office buildings owned by DIFA-Fonds Number 1. Last week, the same fund sold four office properties to European real estate investment company IVG Immobilien for €190 million.
The properties that Tishman has acquired are located in Berlin, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Munich and include the Westend Carree and Aculeum buildings in Frankfurt.
News of the deal comes a week after research by Richard Ellis said German open-ended funds became net sellers of property in the first half of the year, helping fuel the market. Buyers are being attracted by what they perceive as relatively low prices and the belief that Germany’s sick economy is slowing returning to health.
Despite the overall trend of selling, DIFA said its strategy was to gradually expand the portfolio of DIFA-Fonds Number 1 by targeting investment in Germany and other European countries.
Dr Frank Billand, a member of DIFA’s management board, said in a statement: “This sale in favorable market conditions enables us to optimize our portfolio structures, which were overweight in the office sector—particularly in the Rhein-Main area.”
Also in Europe today, newly floated New Star Asset Management revealed that it bought two properties in the Netherlands for its Global Property Fund for €150 million at a gross initial yield of 6.2 percent.
The properties include Queens Towers, a 300,850-square-foot office complex consisting of three towers outside of Amsterdam’s city center, and De Parade, four interconnecting buildings totaling 170,000 square feet located in Amstelveen, a suburb of Amsterdam. Those buildings are entirely leased to ABN AMRO Bank until 2011.
Hypo Real Estate provided €115 million to fund the deal.
New Star also bought a vacant office in Munich, Germany, from Redevco Services Deutschland on the former site of the Munich Trade Fair.
The London-based asset management firm has been busy recruiting new hires to help invest its funds. European property acquisitions manager Robin Carr recently and Asian Property acquisitions manager Simon Tyrell both recently joined from global property services firm Richard Ellis, while Andrew Banks, chief operating officer of the firm’s property arm, has joined from Legal & General, where he was property finance director.
Roger Dossett is head of property fund management at New Star.
If you do not receive this within five minutes, please try to sign in again. If the problem persists, please email: 
