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Facebook opens new London hub; RBS closing 259 branches; CA Immo CEO to resign

* Facebook Inc. opened its new office at Rathbone Place in central London to house its largest computer engineering base outside the U.S. The seven-story, 247,000-square-foot office was sold by Great Portland Estates Plc to an entity owned by Deka Immobilien Investment GmbH and WestInvest Gesellschaft Für Investmentfonds mbH for £435.0 million earlier in 2017.

* Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc will close a further 259 physical branches in the U.K. as an increasing number of its customers switch to online banking. The closure will comprise 62 RBS branches and 197 National Westminster Bank Plc branches. In March, the bank decided to close 158 branches across the region.

* CA Immobilien Anlagen AG CEO Frank Nickel is resigning due to health reasons. Nickel will be replaced by Andreas Quint once the resignation takes effect, with Dec. 31 being the earliest possible date and March 31, 2018, the latest.

UK and Ireland

* Assura Plc is set to rake in gross proceeds of £310.7 million from an announced issuance of 545,124,813 new ordinary shares, subject to approval by its shareholders at a Dec. 4 meeting.

* SmithsonHill, a joint venture between Hill Commercial Investments and Russell Smith Farms, is planning a £500 million business park in Cambridge, U.K., spanning up to 1.3 million square feet of employment space. The "agritech" park is set to be the first technology park of its sector in the U.K.

* Hermes Investment Management loaned a £120 million senior financing facility to Firmdale Holdings Ltd. to refinance a loan on its Ham Yard Hotel asset in London, Property Investor Europe reported.

* Tide Construction received planning consent for two residential towers — respectively 38 stories and 44 stories high — at 101 George St. in Croydon, U.K., a development that is poised to be the largest modular construction project in Europe, Property Week reported.

* Germany-based TRIUVA Kapitalverwaltungsgesellschaft mbH has offered €164 million to buy the first of five office buildings under construction at the Dublin docklands by local developer Ballymore and Singapore's Oxley Holdings Ltd., The Irish Times reported. The price offered is higher than the €150 million tag the asset was first placed on the market with. The sale attracted bids from Irish, European, Middle Eastern and Asian investors, the report noted.

* The Mallaghan and Kelly families in Ireland wrapped up the sale of the 165-bedroom Carton House hotel and golf resort in Co Kildare for a price understood to be approximately €57 million, according to The Irish Times. The 668-acre estate was bought by John Mullen, an Irish American businessman, the report added.

France and the Netherlands

* Pierre & Vacances Group raised approximately €100 million from a private placement of net share settled bonds due April 1, 2023. Proceeds from the issue will be used for the company's planned repurchase of €55.0 million worth of 1,510,543 outstanding ORNANEs, or bonds, due 2019, as well as for general corporate purposes.

* PATRIZIA Immobilien AG sold a portfolio of 1,728 homes in 61 complexes across 30 municipalities in the Netherlands to Woonzorg Nederland and Amvest for €200 million.

* Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust finalized its €82.6 million acquisition of a portfolio comprising 11 residential assets in the Netherlands.

Switzerland and Germany

* Swiss Prime Site AG unit Swiss Prime Site Immobilien AG closed the purchase of three buildings through the acquisition of Bellevue-Bau AG from the fenaco LANDI Foundation. The fully let buildings offer a total floor area of 22,700 square meters and are situated on two land plots spanning 7,534 square meters in Winterthur, Switzerland.

* La Française Real Estate Partners, acting for two of its real estate funds, acquired the Victoria Office property in Hamburg, Germany, for an unknown price, PIE reported. The six-floor, 19,400-square-meter building is occupied by a German railway company, a logistics group, an international publisher and an online investments provider, among other tenants.

Spain

* Lar España Real Estate SOCIMI SA plans to invest €247 million on new development schemes and property improvements under its 2018-2021 business plan. Approximately €200 million of the total investment will be used to develop two shopping centers in Spain, which are slated to open in 2018 and 2019.

Russia

* AFI Development Plc expects to receive a sum of 7.89 billion Russian rubles, net of the applicable Russian value-added tax, from the sale of two office buildings inside the Aquamarine III Business Centre in Moscow. The company agreed to sell Building 2 and Building 4 at the completed development to an undisclosed Russian bank.

Norway

* Rezidor Hotel Group AB's Radisson Blu Atlantic Hotel in Stavanger reopened after 465 million Norwegian kroner worth of renovations, which took a year to complete. Rezidor's share of the investment was approximately 165 million kroner, while joint venture partner KLP spent 300 million kroner on the project.

Other real estate news

* Following the acquisition of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles' German headquarters, BNP Paribas Real Estate Investment Management's pan-European fund hit the roughly €750 million mark. Next Estate Income Fund II purchased the fully-occupied, 10,000-square-meter building in Frankfurt from German developer Lang & Cie.

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The Daily Dose Europe, Real Estate edition, is updated as of 6:30 a.m. London time. Some links require a subscription. Articles and links are correct as of publication time.

Celestyn Wong contributed to this report.

As of Dec. 1, US$1 was equivalent to 8.30 Norwegian kroner and 58.55 Russian rubles.