Hanwha Investment buys Prague office complex for $286 mn
Apr 02, 2019 (Gmt+09:00)
Korea’s Incheon Airport Corp. signs $3 billion deal to run Manila airport
S.Korea's LS Materials set to boost earnings ahead of IPO process
Samsung Elec vies for Johnson Controls' HVAC units
Samsung to supply $752 million in Mach-1 AI chips to Naver, replace Nvidia
Solo Leveling: Arise, Netmarble's webtoon-based game to spur turnaround
Hanwha Investment & Securities Co. Ltd. has acquired a five-building office complex in Prague for 325 billion won ($286 million), as South Korean institutional investors are increasingly looking to Eastern Europe for undervalued assets.
The brokerage arm of South Korea’s Hanwha Group recently closed the acquisition of Prague Waltrovka from Penta Real Estate, which is expected to generate annual returns of between 8% and 9%, according to media reports.
A source with knowledge of the matter confirmed it on April 1.
For the transaction, Hanwha Investment put 130 billion won in a vehicle of Seoul-based LB Asset Management Co. Ltd. and borrowed the remainder.
It is now selling down the equity interest to domestic institutional investors.
Completed between 2015 and 2018, the five buildings span 80,000 square meters. They are located in Prague 5, one of the largest municipal districts of the capital city of Czech Republic.
Anchor tenants include Johnson & Johnson, Oracle Corp., and Schneider Electric SE, with an average vacancy rate of 4%.
GLL Real Estate Partners, a unit of Macquarie Group, will manage the property on behalf of Hanwha Investment.
Steady economic growth and low unemployment rate are luring South Korean investors into the office markets of Czech Republic and Poland, given their geographic positions as members of the European Union.
Last year, Shinhan Investment Corp., a brokerage arm of South Korea’s leading banking group, has bought a KPMG-leased office building in central Prague for 65 billion won, marking the first property acquisition in the Czech Republic by a South Korean financial institution.
LB Asset, founded in 2016, had sourced the deal of acquiring a building used as Facebook Inc.’s second Dublin office for around 150 billion won and the acquisition of two logistics centers in Britain by South Korean brokerage companies for around 270 billion won.
By Daehun Kim
daepun@hankyung.com
(Updated on April 2, 2019 to add the amount of equity investment.)
Yeonhee Kim edited this article
-
Corporate governanceJB investors urged to oppose Align's call for board overhaul
Mar 25, 2024 (Gmt+09:00)
-
Real estateKorean real estate firms put up for sale amid lasting market downturn
Mar 12, 2024 (Gmt+09:00)