“SEB Asset Management is exploiting the favourable situation on the British real estate market for the re-entry of its open-ended real estate fund SEB ImmoInvest. The company has acquired a Class A office building in Birmingham for the mutual fund. The property is leased until April 2022 to the Royal Bank of Scotland.
The seller is The Equitable Life Assurance Society, a British life insurance group, which was represented by Invista Real Estate Investment Management Plc, the United Kingdom’s largest listed real estate corporation. The total investment costs are the equivalent of EUR 35.1 million.
The property, located at 2 St Philips Place, was completed in 2002. Offices belonging to Ernst & Young, the Wesleyan Assurance Society and Barclays are located in the immediate vicinity. A large number of law firms and local authority facilities also have representative offices here. St Philips Place is one of the city’s prime office locations. The total rental space of approximately 5,890 m² is spread across seven floors, plus storage and parking spaces below ground. The main entrance is located directly opposite St Philips Place and St Philips Cathedral. Birmingham has two direct rail links to London via New Street Station and Snow Hill Station, both of which can be reached on foot.
Birmingham – the second-largest city in the United Kingdom – is the West Midlands’ administrative and financial centre. Some 200 law firms, eight of the ten largest auditors, 50 well-known real estate companies and numerous banks and insurance companies have offices here. In addition to the private sector, the public sector is an important employer.
SEB ImmoInvest was launched in 1989 and has been conceived as a traditional total return fund with a global investment approach. Including this acquisition in the United Kingdom, the open-ended real estate fund now has 150 properties in 19 countries. Total fund assets are approximately EUR 6.2 billion”.
(CS della Società)
