Property firm Principal celebrates €1.2bn of European deals

Principal Real Estate Europe completed €1.2bn of real estate transactions across European funds and mandates in 2018, new figures show.

The real estate investment manager completed a number of eight- and nine-figure deals with businesses across the UK and the Continent, including the acquisition of the National Air Traffic Services Centre in Farnham, Surrey for €90m on behalf of a pension fund client.

Other transactions last year included the €80m acquisition of an office building in Levallois Perret, Paris for Saudi investment manager SEDCO, and €205m of acquisitions across Germany for the German CARE Invest I fund and the French Novapierre Allemagne fund.

In July last year, Principal acquired an office property in Milan for €34m.

Guillaume Masset, head of transactions and asset management in Europe for Principal Real Estate Europe, said: “We believe that the current sustained economic growth will continue to drive demand for commercial real across all property types in Europe, allowing landlords to maintain pricing power in the market and setting up favourable conditions for some rent inflation over the next 12 to 18 months.”

Principal Real Estate Europe chief exec Andrew Thornton said he believes that while there’s a lot going on in the global economy, Europe’s economy is “in good shape”.

He continued: “We believe these conditions will present real estate investors with some interesting opportunities in 2019, particularly for those focussed on sustainable long-term trends linked to demographics, innovation-led industries, globalisation and technology.”