German money rises in West End after Verde deal
German investment in the West End has reached £515m for the year-to-date on the back of last week's announcement that German fund manager Deka Immobilien GmbH completing one of the largest deals this summer, buying the Verde office building in Victoria for roughly £460m on Friday.
The deal pushed investment levels up to £515m, compared with £476m for all of last year and £216m in 2016.
Victoria’s Verde block, which covers more than 250,000 square feet of office building, was sold by Tishman Speyer and PSP Investments, who bought the building in 2012.
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“London presents a viable place for the Germans to deploy their capital,” according to Lee Sheldon, a real estate partner at Addleshaw Goddard. “Whilst the European Medicines Agency has just pulled out and of course there are going to be companies that look to reallocate, we haven’t seen the exodus that was feared following the Brexit vote. There is a continuing trend that London remains a place where businesses want to be located and that European countries feels safe putting their capital here.”
Sheldon added: “If you look at all the major European countries, Germany has by far the largest pool of pension funds. Its a successful country and it has the most capital to deploy out of all the European countries.”