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21.12.2009
Quelle: Euro Property The Hamburg-based asset and fund manager is looking at London office assets. Its HIH Global Invest arm, which has done €500m of deals this year, has invested in Germany, Belgium, Vienna and New Zealand Four main areas of businessHIH is a Hamburg-based asset and fund manager, wholly owned by private bank MM Warburg & Co. Founded 20 years ago, the Company employs 190 staff focusing on four areas: asset management, property management, project development, and investment products. MM Warburg's history goes back as far as 1798.HIH Global Invest, a 100% unit of HIH, is responsible for making the investments and launching and structuring the investment products, which are mostly closed-end funds for retail investors. Private Investors can invest between €10,000 and €100,000 in the closed-end funds. HIH Global Invest was created in 2006 to spearhead the Company's foreign expansion. The fund manager has sought investments outside London but has found that regional yields do not offer a premium to the capital. It recently came sixth in the bidding for a property in Glasgow. This year, HIH collected €50m of equity. Next year, Schulz hopes to raise €75m. Half of the equity collected was for the London purchase. In June, HIH bought Friary Court in London for £42.6m, reflecting a 6.95% yield. The 74,000 sq ft (6,875 m2) office is let to shipping lawyers Holman Fenwick Wilanon on a 15-year lease. After eight weeks, HIH's take-up was better than expected: it had raised £26.3m for the £49.3m fund, HIH Global Invest 02 -Grossbritannien, which is 50% geared, with debt provided by German bank WestImmo.Schulz sees Investment opportunities in various markets, but his company faces two main obstacles. First, the country in which the asset resides has to have a double taxation agreement with Germany, so that investors avoid paying tax twice. Second, investors are still nervous. The Warsaw market, for example, offers interesting yields, but Schulz believes that his investors are not ready for Poland yet, even though some of the German open-ended funds have done great deals at 7% or higher. The same goes for the US. "But I don't see the market environment for the retail funds yet," he says.Given these two obstacles, HIH Global Invest focuses on three to five markets in Europe. They include Belgium, which HIH likes for the long leases signed by EU organisations; and greater Paris, because of its diversification and the high fungibility of the property. Schulz is also looking at Vienna, because it is euro-denominated and German speaking, but says that the number of suitable assets for sale there is limited. Although he likes the Netherlands, Schulz believes that there are already enough closed-end fund managers offering Investment opportunities through Dutch assets. "We don't want to be the fifth or sixth fund manager to offer Holland," he says.Of course, HIH is also interested in further buying in Germany, where it focuses on the five main cities: Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Munich and Düsseldorf.In its hometown, HIH recently bought the Columbus-Haus property for €74m, reflecting a net yield when fully let of 6%. HIH bought the 18,100 m2 building for Warburg-Henderson from Tishman Speyer and Lehman Brothers. The asset is in the HafenCity development, adjacent to Hamburg's new concert hall, Elbphilharmonie. In Düsseldorf, HIH recently bought a 22,000 m2 office building on the prestigious Königsallee. It was a sale-and-leaseback transaction with Deutsche Telekom for a spezialfonds of Warburg Henderson.Outside Europe, HIH has assets in New Zealand, where two years ago it bought two long-leased, core assets in Auckland for its Pacific Core fund. One grade-A office property has been leased to General Electric and the other to the Bank of New Zealand. The capital was raised this year.This year, HIH will have traded €500m worth of assets. It is on track to invest €250m before the end of the year, bringing the total volume of assets under management to €3.7bn.The Investment arm may have the highest profile, but it is not HIH's bread-and butter-business. Most of the revenue comes from the asset management side. HIH also manages assets for third parties, such as German property Company Alstria aand Citi Property Investors.