Goldman Sachs, Cromwell Property buy Finland office, property portfolio

Cromwell Europe chief executive David Kirkby said Cromwell’s extensive platform in Europe was being utilised by clients to access quality real estate transactions.

“This latest trade highlights how one of our private equity clients has benefited from our extensive European platform to access good quality deals in a new geographic area.”

“The combination of locally based teams and an established cross-border platform is a great enabler, providing clients with the confidence to invest in new markets as they search for returns from European real estate.”

The Omega portfolio comprises 109,000 square metres of space across 13 office buildings, five industrial buildings and four buildings with primarily retail premises.

The deal, negotiated by JLL, includes key buildings such as the headquarters for the Nordic Investment Bank at Kaisanimenkatu 13 located on the fringe of Helsinki CBD,

In aggregate, the buildings in the portfolio are let to more than 200 tenants, including Mehilainen, S-Group, St1, Cisco and LahiTapiola.

More than 80 per cent of the value of the portfolio is located in the Helsinki metropolitan region, including the cities of Espoo and Vantaa.

Tomas Beck, head of Cromwell’s Nordics operation, said the mix of high quality office buildings such as Kaisaniemenkatu 13 and Stella Terra, the Omega portfolio would provide opportunities to use Cromwell’s local knowledge to create significant value through a variety of strategies.

“These include leasing, re-zoning for residential use and the creation of sub-portfolios of institutional grade investment properties that will attract a wider group of investors.”