Property company BC Partners Real Estate has announced its first investment within Germany.
The company, the real estate investment arm of BC Partners, said it had purchased Alte Post Kreuzberg in south Berlin, a 4,900 square-metre office space. The move marks the company’s first foray into Germany after deploying its capital across France, the UK, and Italy.
“Our investment philosophy is based on the strong conviction real estate markets across Europe are currently experiencing a paradigm shift,” said BC Partners Real Estate partner Laurian Douin. “Demand from both tenants and investors is being fundamentally reshaped by societal trends such as the disintegrating barrier between work and leisure, new co-working concepts, the move to home working, the regeneration of city centres and the growing importance of sustainability.”
The injection of investment money into the German capital is not a new story in itself. Over the last 10 years, pension funds, asset managers and large landlord firms have moved into Berlin. This has led to a housing shortage within the city, driving up prices and starving supply for existing residents. The city government has tried repeatedly to bring in measures to tackle this, all of which have been struck down. A referendum on bringing buildings back into public ownership is soon to take place, although it is widely predicted to fail.
Magnet for business
Berlin has also become a magnet for business investment in recent years. Earlier this month, the city was named as one place that Google was seeking to invest $1bn into, which would be the largest investment made by the tech giant into Germany in two decades.
Other companies are getting in on investing in property within Germany. As Expert Investor wrote in August, “A few days ago, LaSalle Investment Management released its Investment Strategy Annual for 2021. As pandemic restrictions recede by late summer, LaSalle said in an accompanying press release, the real estate markets in Europe are ‘well positioned to mount a robust recovery’. The residential market, it says, ‘continues to perform’, naming Berlin (yeah, thanks) and the extortionately expensive Munich as standout cities. So it seems that even with the collapse of such ventures as the German Property Group/Dolphin Trust, the investment capital is still heading in only one direction.”
