Ashurst advised Warburg-HIH Invest Real Estate GmbH (Warburg-HIH Invest) on the acquisition of the "Hanse Forum" office property in Hamburg. The seller is Standard Life Investments European Real Estate Club L.P II. Warburg-HIH Invest adds an interest of nearly 50 percent in the property to the open-ended special AIF "Warburg HIH Top 7 Deutsche Metropolen Immobilien Invest", which thus reached its envisioned total investment volume of about € 400 million. The other approximately 50 percent are added to the "Deutschland Selektiv Immobilien Invest" fund. The parties agreed not to disclose the purchase price.
The Hanse Forum has 15,000 square metres of gross lettable area. The main occupier of the multi-tenant building is co-working provider WeWork.
The Ashurst team comprised partners Dr Liane Muschter (real estate, lead), Jan Krekeler (corporate/M&A, lead), Derk Opitz (real estate finance), Dr Martin Bünning (tax, all Frankfurt) and Isabelle Lentz (Luxembourg law, London). They were assisted by the two counsel Dr Maria Held (competition and antitrust, Munich) and Paul Witte (Luxembourg law, London), the associates Sven Nickel (real estate), Anna-Maria Krekeler (corporate/M&A) and Annabelle Sachs (real estate finance) as well as paralegals Anja Stötzel and Oliver Lamberti (both real estate, all Frankfurt).
Ashurst's longstanding client Warburg-HIH Invest is a real estate investment manager serving institutional investors and covering the entire spectrum of national and international real estate investments. Warburg-HIH Invest is one of Germany's leading managers of special AIF for real estate with around €6.8 billion of real estate assets under management.
