Real estate investor and fund manager, Cromwell Property Group (Cromwell), on behalf of Cromwell European REIT (CEREIT), recently completed the acquisition of two logistics assets in ‘s-Heerenberg and Tilburg, the Netherlands.

The first acquisition in ‘s-Heerenberg is a freehold logistics asset, strategically located at the Dutch-German border, beside the Netherlands’ A12 highway, one of the main logistics corridors into Germany.

The fully-let asset consists of approximately 15,000 sqm of primary warehouse and supporting office space, situated on 22,000 sqm of freehold land. The asset was originally built in 1993 and extended in 1999. Substantial renovations were undertaken in 2019, including the installation of heating and cooling functions, sustainable LED lighting, electric systems, a full office fit-out and automation.

The property is fully-leased to Kleertjes.com B.V., a leading online children’s apparel retailer recently acquired by Wehkamp, one of the largest e-commerce operators in the Netherlands.

The second acquisition is a freehold logistics asset, situated at the Katsbogten industrial park within the prime logistics region of Tilburg-Waalwijk. It is strategically located at the entrance of the A58 highway providing strong accessibility to the Rotterdam / Antwerp and Eindhoven economic zones.

The fully-let asset, built in two phases in 2012 and 2019, consists of approximately 8,600 sqm of primary warehouse and supporting office space, situated on approximately 14,000 sqm of freehold land. The property holds an A++++ energy label and was recently upgraded further with the installation of approximately 1,700 solar roof panels.

The property is fully occupied on a long-term basis by a well-established shoe and fashion manufacturer.

Gijs Vissers, Head of Investment Management, Benelux at Cromwell Property Group, said: “We are delighted to have secured these highly attractive assets on behalf of CEREIT, in addition to the 12 office and logistics / light industrial assets we currently manage across the Benelux region. The Netherlands logistics market remains as one of the most active and established markets in Europe driven by its role as the redistribution gateway from the Rotterdam and Amsterdam seaports.”

CEO of the Manager of CEREIT, Simon Garing said: “I am pleased to announce CEREIT’s first additions to its Dutch light industrial / logistics portfolio post-IPO as a result of the on-the-ground team’s excellent work in sourcing these opportunities. CEREIT continues to add scale to its logistics portfolio in the Netherlands, which is a core market for Western Europe supply chains, given its strategic connectivity between its large ports and distribution network.”

Cromwell was supported across both transactions by legal advisor, Loyens & Loeff, financial / tax advisor, PwC and technical advisor, SGS. BNP Paribas Real Estate acted as the commercial advisor for the s’Heerenberg acquisition and 1530 Real Estate acted as the commercial advisor for the second acquisition in Tilburg.

The seller of the Tilburg asset was supported by commercial advisor, Raimond Weenink Bedrijfsmakelaardij and legal advisor, Boels Zanders Advocaten.

Real estate investor and fund manager, Cromwell Property Group (Cromwell) has announced the Cromwell Polish Retail Fund (CPRF) received a GRESB score of 85 for 2021, an increase of 42 points since first reporting in 2014.

CPRF contains seven catchment-dominating shopping centres strategically located across Poland. Three of the shopping centres have undergone significant redevelopment and refurbishment including the award-winning Janki Shopping Centre’s €65 million expansion which added 21,000 sqm of net lettable area, allowing a more diversified tenant mix between retail and leisure.

Cromwell’s Head of ESG, Claire George, commented, “Year-on-year, Cromwell continues to actively seek out new and innovative ways in which we can reduce the environmental impact of our activity and funds to meet investor needs. The improvement in our GRESB score over the past seven years is just the latest example of how we are making continuous improvements across our assets to align with evolving investor demands and is an excellent achievement for the team in Poland.”

Magdalena Piechna, Fund Manager, CPRF added, “Over a number of years, the team has made great strides in improving the CPRF GRESB score, with this year’s score of 85 almost doubling its original 2014 result. This achievement is testament to the efforts of the whole team in Central and Eastern Europe and illustrative of the group’s commitment to improving sustainability across the assets we manage.”

In CEE, Cromwell has over 45 real estate professionals and, as at 30 June 2021, managed €1.1 billion of office, retail and logistics and light industrial assets let to over 570 tenant-customers, covering over 787,000 sqm in Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia.

About GRESB

Launched in 2009, GRESB is an investor-driven global ESG benchmark and reporting framework for listed property companies, private property funds, developers and investors that invest directly in real estate.

Participation in the benchmark grew by 24% this year, to 1,520. This is the highest percentage increase the assessment has seen since 2012 and the highest ever increase in total numbers. The benchmark now covers $5.7 trillion of AUM (up from $4.8 trillion) and nearly 117,000 individual assets.

Growth has been driven mainly by Europe, which saw massive growth for the second year in a row and now accounts for nearly half of the entire benchmark. High continued growth in Europe is likely driven by both investor interest in ESG data and the industry’s focus on and attention to emerging regulations. The group of listed entities grew by 20% while the non-listed group grew by 25%. GRESB measures and ranks public disclosure practices of participating listed entities on an annual basis. Categories assessed include sustainability governance, sustainability implementation, operational performance and stakeholder engagement practices.

Real estate investor and fund manager, Cromwell Property Group (Cromwell), has appointed Afraz Ahmed as Head of Treasury for Europe.

Afraz will be responsible for Cromwell’s banking and lending relationships in Europe, including raising new debt and managing existing facilities on behalf of its European funds and mandates. He will also provide advisory and execution services on hedging and credit risk issues.

With substantial treasury experience in the funds management sector, Afraz joins Cromwell from Varde Partners, where he set up and ran the treasury function for Europe and Asia.

Cromwell’s Head of Treasury Brett Hinton said: “I would like to welcome Afraz to Cromwell and look forward to working with him closely. His experience in working with global institutional investors will be invaluable as he takes on his new role, supporting the entirety of our European operations and portfolio.”

Afraz added: “I am delighted to be joining Cromwell and look forward to supporting the funds management and capital teams in delivering great outcomes for our investors and capital partners.”

Afraz holds an MBA from Cranfield School of Management and a BSc (Hons) in Economics and Business Finance from Brunel University.

Real estate investor and fund manager, Cromwell Property Group (Cromwell) has appointed Florian Hoyndorf as Head of Development for Europe. Florian joins the European real estate management team and will oversee all development and project management activity in Europe.

With more than 20 years of real estate development experience, Florian joins from LOGISTA Group where he spent three years as head of real estate and construction, responsible for all aspects of its real estate portfolio. Prior to this, he was a real estate transaction and asset manager at Amazon and Aldi, where he was involved in the acquisition and construction of large-scale warehouses, last mile facilities and retail outlets.

Responsibilities in this newly created role will include identifying, assessing and delivering the development projects within Cromwell’s existing managed portfolio.  Additionally, Florian will be focused on further building the pipeline through the development growth strategy within the business and with our investment partners across the group.

Cromwell’s development pipeline in Europe currently consists of 24 projects across nine different countries, all at various stages of assessment, planning and construction.

Chris Hansen, Cromwell’s Group Head of Development, commented: “As yields continue to tighten across some of the better performing real estate sectors, value-add and development strategies provide some investors with the higher returning investment they require.”

“We have already  identified a number of exciting opportunities across our platform that we believe will add value and look forward to having Florian and the development team successfully delivering these and the returns to our investors.”

Florian Hoyndorf, Head of Development, Europe added: “I am delighted to be joining Cromwell which has a long track record of value-add activities across the group. I’m excited to work closely with Chris and the European team to crystallise these opportunities as well as identifying new possibilities.”

Florian holds a masters degree in Architecture and Urbanism from the Universitat Politécnica de Cataluña Barcelona and a graduate degree in Architecture from the University of Applied Sciences Hamburg.

Europa Capital, the pan-European real estate investment manager, on behalf of its latest value-add fund, and Cromwell Property Group (Cromwell) have launched a German logistics joint venture (JV) with a target GAV of €150 million.

The joint venture will target logistics assets and portfolios across Germany with individual lot sizes starting from €8 million where Europa Capital and Cromwell can leverage their combined active asset management expertise to create value. The JV recently made its first investment, acquiring a 12,000 sqm warehouse property near Cologne and is currently undertaking due diligence on other assets as it continues to build a strong pipeline of future investments.

The JV builds on Europa Capital’s track record of establishing similar platforms across Europe, including in the UK, the Netherlands and Germany in order to capitalise on the demand for warehouse assets where there is tight supply due to strong demand and limited land availability.

Jason Oram, Partner, Fund Manager at Europa Capital, added: “We have seen a significant increase in the demand for light industrial and last mile logistics assets from institutional investors. Real estate allocations have started to shift away from sectors, which have been adversely affected by ongoing structural changes in the industry and the COVID-19 pandemic, towards the logistics space, where we are able to leverage our track record. The sector has proven its resilience during the pandemic, evidenced by the high levels of rent collection we have recorded across our wider portfolio and we firmly believe that rents will grow for well-located assets within this sector over the course of our hold period in this venture.”

James Farmer, Partner, Origination & Acquisitions at Europa Capital, commented: “Strong occupational demand is being driven by a growing need for distribution space, which is putting upward pressure on rents and creating favourable conditions for us to reduce existing vacancies and improve valuations over the anticipated holding period of this platform. Continental Europe lags the US & UK in terms of e-commerce penetration and we believe that this will be a substantial driver of performance in the logistics sector in countries such as Germany over the next five years and beyond. We look forward to working with Cromwell’s team on-the-ground in Germany to source the right opportunities as we assemble a strategic portfolio on behalf of our investors.”

Michael Bohde, Head of Germany at Cromwell Property Group, commented: “We are delighted to be partnering with Europa Capital in order to build an attractive and marketable portfolio of assets over a four to five-year time horizon. As the largest light industrial and logistics market in Europe, Germany provides investors with exposure to a stable macro-economic environment, yields and well-established international brands.”