Â鶹ӳ»­

A fund managed by CBRE Global Investors and the Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS) have jointly acquired the Leine-Center near Hanover in Germany for €117 mln.

The deal reflects a net initial yield of 6%.

The vendors were LaSalle Investment Management (LaSalle), acting on behalf of its European property fund LaSalle Euro Growth II, Adler Immobilien Investment Gruppe, Fay Projects and THI Holding.

The shopping centre is located in Laatzen, a suburb of Hanover, and was originally opened in 1973 and extended in 2011. The centre is fully let. It comprises 28,161 m2 providing space for 101 retail units that include H&M, Deichmann, Expert, DM, Adler and Douglas.

Jones Lang LaSalle acted as property consultant on the transaction, GSK Stockmann + Kollegen acted as legal adviser for the seller, while Berwin Leighton Paisner provided legal advice to the buyer.

LaSalle Investment Management, a member of the New York-listed Jones Lang LaSalle group, has $47 bn (€36 bn) of assets under management of private and public property equity investments.

The acquisition of the Leine Centrebrings the number of investments in the CBREGI fund to four and is the first acquisition for the fund in Germany.

Florencio Beccar, fund manager, CBRE Global Investors, said: 'This acquisition provides exposure to a country where we anticipate that economic growth will continue to be above trend. Germany is the largest retail market in Europe in terms of sales, but it is under retailed in terms of shopping centre gross lettable area (GLA) which contributes to high occupancy and rent sustainability.'

CBRE Global Investors is one of the leading retail investment manager in EMEA with €12.6 of non-listed retail assets under management, 790 retail assets (of which 117 are shopping centres) across 17 countries and over 4,592 retail tenants.

TRS has $110 bn of assets under management, with $13 bn in real estate and a further $2 bn in REITS.