* British Land Co. Plc Co CEO Chris Grigg said the company's fiscal third-quarter performance was positive and the company was well-placed, but the company remains "mindful of potential headwinds going forward".
As at the end of the reporting period, the company's portfolio was 97% occupied with 314,000 square feet of retail lettings and renewals. It is also in talks with potential tenants for 1.4 million square feet of space. The company also affirmed its 7.30 pence dividend for the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2016, which will be paid May 5 to shareholders on record as of March 31.
* AccorHotels priced an offering of €600 million worth of bonds with an annual coupon of 1.25% over a seven-year term. The company said that the oversubscribed issuance was launched amid favorable credit market conditions to optimize average funding cost and extend average debt maturity.
UK and Ireland
* U and I Group PLC partnered up with Colony NorthStar Inc. to launch a €300 million joint venture platform to invest in the London, Manchester, U.K., and Dublin office markets. The 50/50 joint venture will add value to under-performing office buildings through improved planning, development, refurbishment and asset management.
U and I made an initial €14 million contribution to the joint venture and added two assets: The Record Store at The Old Vinyl Factory in London and the 72,000-square-foot Donnybrook House in Dublin.
* London & Regional Properties Ltd. is believed to be paying up to £600 million for two of the U.K.'s largest hotels, Property Week reported. Tonstate Group is selling the 1,059-room Hilton London Metropole and the 790-room Hilton Birmingham Metropole, marking one of the largest hotel deals in the U.K., compared to other transactions completed in 2016, according to the report.
Tonstate acquired the two four-star hotels in 2006 for a price of £417 million. The purchase will bring London & Regional's hotel portfolio up to approximately 8.500 rooms across Europe.
* Crosslane Student Developments is seeking planning approval to build a 583-bed student accommodation development on Friar's Road in Coventry, PW reported. The company's Development Manager Mike Moran said the project will help ease the city's supply and demand fundamentals for purpose-built student accommodation.
* According to a report from Intu Properties Plc, three-quarters of international retailers would rather expand in other countries than open stores in the U.K., mainly due to high business rates, among others barriers to entry. The joint research from intu and Revo interviewed 130 retailers about their expansion plans in the U.K.
The report stated that the government has to review the business rates structure and rectify the areas that make the U.K. less competitive for the flow of inward investments.
* December 2016 was the weakest month for the British housing market as price growth slowed down for the first time since July last year, Bloomberg News reported, citing the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. The RICS index declined to 24 in December from 29 a month before, with only a smaller majority of respondents realizing price gains.
* Facebook, AIB and the IDA are some of the companies on the hunt for office accommodation in Dublin, as demand for office space in the city is at its strongest level in years, The Irish Times reported. Approximately 167,000 square meters of new space spread over 30 developments is due for completion this year, according to the report.
Nordic countries
* Germany-based Bayerische Versorgungskammer wrapped up its €119 million purchase of an 11,700-square-meter Danish retail and office portfolio through Hines and Universal-Investment, IPE Real Estate reported. The five prime high street retail assets in Copenhagen were acquired from Avignon Capital, the report noted.
* Alecta acquired 10 properties in the waterfront area leading to Stockholm harbor in Sweden from U.S.-based Carlyle Group, IPE Real Estate reported. The portfolio, which includes offices, hotels, public buildings and educational facilities, offers 110,000 square meters of rentable area and has 300 commercial tenants.
Financial details of the deal were not disclosed, but Alecta Real Estate Head Fredrik Palm said the company paid a price of more than 2 billion Swedish kronor.
* Entra ASA signed an agreement with Samhällsbyggnadsbolaget i Norden AB to sell its portfolio of seven properties in Kristiansand, Norway. The 45,000-square-meter portfolio is being sold for 863 million Norwegian kroner.
Entra said its strategic disposal of the Kristiansand portfolio, which was identified as geographically non-core, is in line with the company's choice to focus on centrally located office assets in Norway's four largest cities.
Germany
* S&P Global Ratings raised its long-term corporate credit rating for conwert Immobilien Invest SE to BBB+ from BBB-, with a stable outlook. The rating agency's view on conwert's creditworthiness is supported by its status as a core subsidiary of Vonovia SE, following a successful takeover.
Separately, conwert's shareholder Adler Real Estate AG completed the sale of its 26% stake in the company to Vonovia for €422 million. The cash consideration was priced at €16.16 per conwert share.
* Chinese conglomerate Fosun acquired a 34,000-square-meter office complex in Frankfurt from U.S.-based opportunity fund Fortress Investment for approximately €50 million, Property Investor Europe reported. Fosun carried out the deal, its first property investment in Germany, through its pan-European property investment joint venture with U.K.-based Resolution Property, the report noted, citing sources familiar with the matter.
Italy
Logistics Capital Partners has teamed up with AEW's LOGISTIS fund to develop a 1.14 million-square-foot distribution center for Amazon in Italy, PW reported. The building, which is located between Turin and Milan, will be one of the largest logistics facilities in the country once it is completed in the third quarter of this year.
Middle East
DAMAC Real Estate Development Ltd. Chairman Hussain Sajwani believes property prices in Dubai will remain stable during the next two years, adding that there will be no "big jump up or down" in the prices, Arabian Business reported. The chairman revealed in a statement to Bloomberg in Davos that the company is planning to add new projects to its portfolio in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, where it currently has four and three projects, respectively.
DAMAC is currently developing the 50-story Aykon London One in Nine Elms district, while seeking more opportunities in the capital to benefit from a weaker sterling, the report noted.
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Data Dispatch Europe: 109 SNL-covered European real estate companies trading at implied upside: PATRIZIA Immobilien AG, based in Germany, traded at the largest implied upside to its price target estimate on Jan. 13, at 42.13%.
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.
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Celestyn Wong and Cam Nones contributed to this report.