Midas Asset acquires German logistics portfolio for $217 mn

Seoul-based Midas Asset Management has acquired three logistics assets in Germany, including an Amazon-leased facility, for 200 million euros ($217 million), in an investment expected to generate an internal rate of return of about 7%, according to sources with knowledge of the matter.

Midas Asset funded the acquisition from a Canadian pension fund via two vehicles that raised 83.5 million euros. Two South Korean brokerage firms -- NH Investment & Securities Co. Ltd. and Hana Financial Investment Co. Ltd. – underwrote them to sell down to domestic investors, the sources said on May 12.

The remaining 120 million euros were borrowed from local banks in Europe.

“We had completed due diligence study on the assets in the second half of last year and planned to close the transaction early this year,” a Midas source told the Korean Investors. “But the deal closing was delayed due to growing uncertainties from the Covid-19.”

That marked its first real estate investment since it invested $100 million in mezzanine debt on a portfolio of 53 US hotels in 2018.

“We will expand investment in real estate and hedge funds, with focus on logistics centers and data centers that will sustain growth post Covid-19,” the source said.

Midas Asset bought the Maple logistics portfolio with 150,000 square meters from Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan. The portfolio includes a 100,000-square-meter fulfilment center leased to Amazon.

Tenants for the two other facilities are electronics giant Siemens AG and Materion Corp., a materials producer, according to media reports.

Their weighted average lease term is almost 14 years, Apeiron Capital LLC said in a recent statement.
Apeiron, a European real estate investment firm, sourced the deal for Midas.

In May 2019, Apeiron formed a joint venture with two South Korean firms -- Hana Financial Investment and Tiger Alternative Investors -- and GreenOak Real Estate to buy another German logistics portfolio. The acquisition price was estimated at. 350 million to 400 million euros.

With Amazon-leased logistics centers becoming highly soughed-after assets among institutional investors, Samsung Securities acquired a new logistics center in Germany for 260 billion won in 2019, leased to Amazon.

Write to Jung-hwan Hwang at jung@hankyung.com