Deka buys Acacias 60 office property in Switzerland

Deka Immobilien has secured an office building in Geneva as part of a sale and leaseback transaction with the private bank Pictet & Cie SA. The property is to be brought into the two open-ended real estate funds WestInvest InterSelect (66 percent) and Deka-ImmobilienEuropa (34 percent) via a joint venture. As part of the regular process for such transactions, it is subject to the final decision of the local authorities. “The purchase offers the rare opportunity to acquire a top property with a renowned tenant with good credit ratings in the Swiss real estate market, which is dominated by local investors,” says Victor Stoltenburg, Managing Director of Deka Immobilien. The parties have agreed not to disclose the purchase price.

The “Acacias 60” building was completed in 2006 as the headquarters of the Pictet Group and will continue to be used in full by the financial services provider in the long term. The building, designed as a multi-tenant property with three independent building blocks, comprises around 38,000 square meters of lettable space as well as 368 car and 459 motorcycle parking spaces. The property is located south of downtown Geneva, in the municipality of Carouge, and is part of the “Praille Acacias Vernets” (“PAV”) urban development area. The PAV area is one of the largest projects in the canton and is intended to develop into a main business center in Geneva with a mixed use of living, working, leisure and public infrastructure. It has very good transport links. The building is HPE and BREAM certified.

The transaction opens up WestInvest InterSelect's entry into the Swiss real estate market and thus regional diversification into a stable and comparatively less volatile market. Deka-ImmobilienEuropa, which so far has only invested in Zurich, can optimize its regional diversification in Switzerland with this acquisition.