Dublin firm pays €26m for German retail centre near Dortmund

Greenman Investments, a Dublin-headquartered property investment firm and asset manager, has paid German investors €26.4 million for a retail centre anchored by grocery giant REWE, and located just north of Dortmund.

The deal is the latest struck this year by the acquisitive Greenman, which invests solely in German retail assets. It spent €95 million on 29 grocery stores in April and has recently completed deals on the Baltic Coast. The deal brings the value of German retail centres owned or fund managed by Greenman to more than €300 million. The firm confirmed yesterday it remains on target to grow this to €500 million by next summer.

‘Hybrid centre’

Greenman latest deal is for a “hybrid centre” in the town of Datteln, roughly the size of Bray and located about a half hour north of Dortmund, Germany’s eighth largest city. It comprises 20 tenants, anchored by REWE but also including the clothes retailer C&A. The StadtGalerie Datteln asset was bought by Greenman for its Retail+ fund, one of four such funds it operates. It also buys German retail assets directly via a joint venture with German commercial property company WCM. It manages all the assets in-house.

James McEvoy, an asset manager with Greenman, said yesterday it is on the look out for more assets similar to the StadtGalerie Datteln. It hopes to wrap up another deal by the end of the year, with another to follow in early 2016.

“We have an attractive pipeline,” he said, confirming the €500 million target for next summer.

Greenman specialises in buying Fachmarktzentrum, German neighbourhood shopping centres that are usually anchored by a food retailer such as Lidl or Aldi. It works with German banks and limits the funds gearing to 50 per cent.

Peter O’Reilly, Greenman’s chief operating officer, said in recent months he has noticed a greater influx of Irish buyers for commercial property assets in Germany, where Irish investors were prominent before the crash. “I’m out there on the ground and you definitely see more Irish buyers active in the German market nowadays,” he said.