Germany’s richest woman buys Frankfurt office tower development
By Bloomberg
Susanne Klatten, Germany’s richest woman, bought the Winx office building that’s planned in Frankfurt’s MainTor waterfront development from DIC Asset AG.
Construction on the 29-story tower, which will cost about 350 million euros ($435 million) to build, will begin in early 2015, Frankfurt-based DIC said in a statement yesterday. Union Asset Management Holding AG has agreed to rent more than half of the 42,000 square meter (452,000 square feet) total space, DIC said in a separate statement last week.
Klatten, a member of the Quandt family, owns about 12 percent of Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, the world’s largest maker of luxury vehicles. Through investment firm Skion, she controls chemical company Altana AG and owns stakes in carbon producer SGL Carbon AG, where she holds the post of supervisory board chairman. Her net worth is about $16.2 billion, making her the world’s 50th richest person, according to Bloomberg data.
Office acquisitions in Frankfurt are soaring as investors take advantage of declining vacancies. Buyers are turning to real estate in the hunt for yield as interest rates hover near record lows. Office property values rose 4 percent in the third quarter compared to a year earlier, to 9,032 euros per square meter, according to Jones Lang LaSalle.
“There are hardly any other investing options,” said Sven Carstensen, a Frankfurt office analyst at Bulwiengesa AG. “Yields here, even if they’re not very high, are still more attractive than leaving your money in the bank.”
Demand in Frankfurt “is coming from a wide range of buyers,” said Carstensen. “We don’t just have Ms. Klatten who’s buying but also Korean pension funds. Frankfurt is the only market where you can spend three or four hundred million euros in one swoop.”
Construction is also booming. Developers will build about 303,000 square meters of offices in Frankfurt this year, 49 percent more than in 2013 and the most since 2003, according to Jones Lang.
The Winx building is part of DIC’s 108,000 square-meter MainTor development zone, which is marketed as Frankfurt’s new “Riverside Financial District,” with 11 office, apartment and retail buildings that will cost 750 million euros to build over six years.