Nordicum - Real Estate Annual Finland 2010 | Page 63

Union Investment Real Estate:

Sustainability all the way
Sustainability is highly-ranked on Union Investment’s agenda when it comes to
initiating new projects and buying new commercial buildings. In an interview, Dr.
Karl-Joseph Hermanns-Engel, member of the management board of Hamburg-based
Union Investment Real Estate GmbH, outlined the international investment strategy
and investment plans for the Nordic countries.

T

he portfolio of Union Investment’s open-ended real
estate funds covers some 230
properties and projects worth €
14.5 billion. Union Investment,
active in Europe, Asia and the
Americas, is the second largest
German manager of open-ended real estate funds with total assets under management of more
than € 18 billion.
One of the topics of the interview was the various projects
which Union Investment has realised in Scandinavia since entering the region in 2005. Union Investment has invested in
a 14,000 square metre shopping
centre in Gothenburg as well as
a 22,000 sqm office block in
Stockholm, its first project in a
Scandinavian country.
Union Investment also
owns the Duetto business park
(14,000 sqm) and the Logistics Centre Tikkurilantie (6,600
sqm) in Helsinki. The company
has ambitious plans for the future in the Baltic region; one of
them being a new business park
in Oslo. Additional projects in
Sweden are also planned.

Active in 25 Countries
Large investments have already
been made in the USA, Canada and in Mexico where Union
Investment acquired a minority stake in the “Torre Mayor”, South America’s tallest office building. In New York, the
“140 Broadway” complex belongs to Union Investment as
does the LEED-certified ”111
South Wacker Drive“ in Chicago.
Another major market is
Chile, where five projects have
been purchased for the funds
since entering the market in

2007. The exposure in the Asia
Pacific region – in Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea
– comprises 18 properties worth
some € 870 millions.
“We are active in 25 countries and have expanded our activities into several new markets
this year,” Dr. Hermanns-Engel
explains.
The company’s core orientated property funds take several sustainability aspects into account: location, construction quality, cash flow, positive
long-term tenants etc. The distribution of total portfolio by type
of use is 60% office buildings,
25% retail, 12% hotels and the
rest logistics centres and residential. Currently the portfolio
comprises 19 hotels worth € 1.6
billion and 19 shopping centres
in Germany, Austria, Belgium,
Poland, Italy, Spain and Turkey
worth € 3.6 billion.

Power of Partnerships
Union Investment’s strategy is
to cooperate with other market
players and invest in properties
initiated by third parties. In the
case of shopping centres, for instance, they cooperate with ECE
with regard to two properties in
Essen and Ludwigshafen.
The theme of Union Investment’s “2010 Prime Property Award” is “Creating sustainable investments and places”. The
award focuses on European real estate projects which combine
commercial success with ecological and social cultural sustainability in an exemplary fashion. Amongst the prize-winners
of the 2008 competition is the
Alsion complex in Sonderborg,
Denmark.
The Prime Property Award
2010, with prize money of 30,000
Euros, will be presented in a ceremony at the EXPO REAL Munich in October 2010. Applicants
with projects of either new buildings, refurbishments or redevelopments realised between 2004–
2009 and with a rental area of
at least 5,000 sqm can transmit
their application until December
15th 2009.
The competition documents can be downloaded at
www.prime-property-award.
com b
Lutz Ehrhardt

Nordicum 61