- Swiss Life Asset Managers, leading real estate manager in Europe, bought the 187,967 sqm logistics portfolio from global investor Barings.
- TA Europe advised Swiss Life Asset Managers and carried out a Technical Due Diligence plausibility check on behalf of the buyer for all of the ten properties.
Essen, 7 September 2021 – Swiss Life Asset Managers bought the storages of the so-called “Sonic Portfolio” for its funds “ESG European Thematic Income & Growth” and “ESG European Industrial & Logistics”, which are both Article 8 funds under the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation. They are located in logistics hubs across Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Six out of the ten properties are cold storage. The purchase price remains confidential.
TA Europe was responsible for verifying the completeness of the existing due diligence reports provided by the vendor and checking the assumptions underlying the evaluations, including CAPEX measures. In addition to the analysis of the documents in the data room, TA Europe also carried out site inspections of three of the ten properties. Furthermore, TA Europe provided ESG services to the buyer, namely checklists for each property, evaluating in which way the storages match current ESG requirements. The environmental due diligence was provided by tauw.
Sebastian Frohwann, Partner at TA Europe, says: “Our team supports portfolio buyers at every single stage of the transaction – we look at all objects meticulously, even if deadlines are tight. At the same time, we can ensure a smooth process, as our newly developed reporting tool speeds up the processing time of portfolios. It also increases cost certainty, as it is connected to our own cost database. Recently, we have been involved in high-value portfolio deals, such as the Matrix logistics portfolio or the Omega office and logistics portfolio. We are glad that Swiss Life Asset Managers relied on us again to support them with the acquisition of this logistics portfolio, and we are pleased that our client completed the transaction successfully.”
Maureen Mahr von Staszewski, Senior Pan-European Fund Manager at Swiss Life Asset Managers, says: “We have been working together with TA Europe on many occasions so far, and were once more very pleased with the speed and quality of the delivered technical due diligence services. The team’s deep familiarity with many asset classes, including logistics, makes them a reliable partner across Europe when it comes to the technical evaluation of real estate assets.”
