(LONDON) – Hines, the international real estate firm, has acquired a 30,000-square-meter portfolio of eight prime sites in France, across Paris and key regional cities, to develop a series of Build-to-Rent residential schemes, on behalf of the Hines Pan-European Core Fund (HECF).
In total, the sites will provide 500 units of high-quality living space across five prime locations in Paris and three regional cities in France. The assets are located in undersupplied residential markets, each with close links to public transport and surrounded by local amenities.
HECF will forward fund the delivery of the projects, having agreed a partnership with Kaufmann & Broad (K&B), the leading France-based publicly listed real estate construction company. K&B will lead the development of the properties. The acquisition represents HECF’s first entry into the French residential market.
Hines Senior Managing Director and HECF Fund Manager Peter Epping said: “While we continue to increase the fund’s exposure to the logistics sector, this acquisition represents a key milestone in the execution of our strategy to diversify into the living sector. The Build-to-Rent sector is a nascent sector in France so we are pleased to be early entrants to a market which is benefiting from strong demographics and other fundamentals, and where we believe there is elevated demand for high quality, well-located flexible accommodation, particularly from young professionals.”
Hines Senior Managing Director and Country Head of France Xavier Musseau commented: “This acquisition marks our first foray into the Build-to-Rent sector in France and builds on our other recent successful transactions. We’re excited to be entering the burgeoning living sector and have a strong team on the ground in France. In addition, we’re delighted to be partnering with one of the country’s best known and highest regarded residential developers in Kaufmann & Broad to deliver these exciting projects.”
Nordine Hachemi, President and CEO of Kaufman-Broad, added: “This first agreement with Hines in France illustrates our desire to support public and private institutional investors, both French and international, toward rental housing and to establish a quality relationship with them over time. Our share of sales to institutional investors is increasing and we expect this trend to continue. The institutional rental investment market should be increasingly strong to meet the growing housing needs in the country and we will continue to support institutional investors to develop their rental offer in France, especially in our busiest cities where there are supply constraints."
The HECF was recently recognized as one of the top property funds in Europe, achieving the MSCI European Property Investment Award for the best performing pan-European balanced fund. In addition, the Fund recently achieved the highest possible rating of five Green stars out of five, for an unprecedented fourth year in a row, by the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB) demonstrating Hines’ commitment to making responsible investments.
Hines was advised by Lasaygues, the residential real estate consultancy, Ikory Asset Management for due diligence, the law firm Lacourte Raquin Tatar, and PWC for taxation advice. Kaufman and Broad was advised by CBRE on the transaction.
About Hines
Hines is a privately owned global real estate investment firm founded in 1957 with a presence in 225 cities in 25 countries. Hines has approximately $144.1 billion¹ of assets under management, including $75.5 billion for which Hines serves as investment manager, including non-real estate assets, and $68.6 billion for which Hines provides third-party property-level services. The firm has 165 developments currently underway around the world. Historically, Hines has developed, redeveloped or acquired 1,426 properties, totaling over 472 million square feet. The firm’s current property and asset management portfolio includes 576 properties, representing over 246 million square feet. With extensive experience in investments across the risk spectrum and all property types, and a pioneering commitment to sustainability, Hines is one of the largest and most-respected real estate organizations in the world. Visit www.hines.com for more information ¹AUM includes both the global Hines organization as well as RIA AUM.
About Hines Pan-European Core Fund (HECF)
The Hines Pan-European Core Fund was set up in 2006 with the aim of providing investors with a resilient income profile derived from a diversified portfolio of high-quality assets located in inner-city locations across major European cities. The Hines European Core has been awarded by MSCI as the strongest performing fund over the 3 years 2017-2019 among the European institutional balanced sector funds, with a total return of 8.45% p.a. during 2017-2019, 211 bps above the average return of the benchmark, making it one of the best performing core property funds in Europe. As of Q4 2020 the HECF portfolio was 98.1% occupied with an aggregate fund value of c.€2.1bn. The portfolio of the Fund comprises 30 assets including forward commitments, invested in 15 city markets across nine different European countries.
About Kaufmann & Broad
English translation. For 50 years, KAUFMAN- BROAD has been designing, developing, building and marketing residential apartments, detached houses, managed residences, businesses, business premises and office buildings. A true urban building designer, working alongside local authorities for new neighbourhoods and major urban projects, KAUFMAN-BROAD is one of the first French Developers-Builders by combining its size, profitability and the power of its brand. For further information about the group: www.kaufmanbroad.fr
