Frasers Property Acquires German Developer Alpha Industrial for $353M

Frasers Property has purchased a portfolio of 22 industrial properties in Germany and Austria for $353 million, as the developer formerly known as Frasers Centrepoint adds to its European platform.

The Singapore-listed firm announced Monday that it has agreed to acquire Alpha Industrial, a German builder of commercial, manufacturing and logistics space, as well as an asset management business, for €285.2 million ($353 million), according to a statement.

22 Project Portfolio

“From the business strategy perspective, Alpha Industrial has a focused strategy for growth, specialising in the development of green and brown-field properties for conversion into modern logistics and industrial facilities,” said Panote Sirivadhanabhakdi, Group CEO of Frasers Property. He added that the acquisition presents an attractive entry point for the company, “given the high quality and location of the assets, defensive portfolio metrics, and solid tenancy profile.”

The deal provides Frasers Property with a set of 16 completed logistics and light industrial facilities, with a combined gross leasable area of 393,800 square metres, including 12 in Germany and another four in Austria. The assets, which are spread across industrial hubs including Cologne, Frankfurt and Vienna, have an average lease expiry of 6.2 years. The company, which changed its name from Frasers Centrepoint earlier this month, said in a statement that it expects the portfolio to create stable and recurring income.

In addition to the stabilised assets, the portfolio also includes six logistics projects with a total gross leasable area of approximately 162,500 square metres. Alongside all this real estate, Frasers gets Alpha’s management business, which provides third-party asset management services for institutions and clients totalling approximately 425,000 square metres.

Frasers Makes Third European Deal in Seven Months

The Alpha Industrial acquisition is the third European logistics buy for Frasers since July last year as the developer controlled by Thai alcohol and property tycoon Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi continues to focus on Occidental opportunities.

“The addition of development capabilities will further strengthen our offering in Europe,” Panote noted. “There will be even more opportunities for cross-marketing to tenants and knowledge sharing across our multi-geographies network in Australia, Thailand and Europe.”

The purchase by Frasers, which last year announced the $3.5 billion Bangkok One project with Thai sister company TCC Assets, comes after the Singapore firm purchased a pair of warehouse facilities in Germany for €42.4 million( $50.2 million) in October.

That shed deal came soon after Frasers acquired a set of four business parks totalling 4.9 million square feet in built area in the UK for £686 million ($903 million) in September. In July the property firm acquired a 76.5 percent stake in German industrial real estate investment firm Geneba Properties for €20.5 million ($23 million).

Asian Investors Continue to Shop for European Warehouses

Frasers’ burst of European industrial buys follows a path beaten by some of Asia’s biggest property investors in the past year and a half.

In October, Singapore-based Global Logistic Properties expanded into Europe by buying a portfolio of Gazeley-branded logistics facilities from Brookfield for $2.8 billion. Just four months earlier, China Investment Corporation (CIC) acquired Blackstone’s Logicor European logistics platform for over €12 billion ($13.4 billion).

That investment by China’s sovereign wealth fund came after its Singaporean counterpart, GIC acquired pan-European warehouse platform P3 Logistic Parks for €2.4 billion ($2.6 billion) from TPG Real Estate and Ivanhoé Cambridge in November 2016.