Sveafastigheter acquires further retail properties in Finland

Sveafastigheter carries out its second acquisition in Finland – buys eight properties in Tampere and southern Finland

The real estate private equity fund Sveafastigheter Fund II has signed an agreement to acquire eight retail properties located in Tampere, Pori and southern Finland with an aggregate lettable space of 17,200 square metres. Total purchase price amounts to approximately EUR 15 million. Among the tenants are the hardware store chain Rautia, Intersport and the Kesko Group food retailer Kesko Food. In April, Sveafastigheter Fund II, in co-operation with the Finnish asset management company HGR Property Partners, acquired retail properties in south-western Finland with an aggregate lettable space of 11,000 square metres. The current acquisition is also carried out in co-operation with HGR Property Partners, which will own a minority stake in the portfolio. HGR Property Partners is a real estate investment company, which acts as a local operating partner with mostly foreign investors. HGR also operates with the same concept with local investors and carries out investments on its own account. During 2006, HGR has been involved in investments worth €50 million. HGR is also responsible for the asset management in these investments. This is the fourth acquisition carried out in the Sveafastigheter Fund II real estate private equity fund. Since its launch in April, the fund has acquired properties in Sweden and Finland with a total value of more than SEK 850 million. Since 2003 Sveafastigheter has carried out acquisitions with an underlying property value of SEK 6 billion in its two funds, Sveafastigheter Sverige I and Sveafastigheter Fund II. – We are pleased that we in a short time have been able to carry out two acquisitons of retail properties in southern and south western Finland, a region that has shown healthy growth in recent years. Our co-operation with HGR Property Partners has got off to a flying start and we are currently evaluating further acquisitions in Finland, says Simon de Ch®teau, CEO of Sveafastigheter. About Sveafastigheter Sveafastigheter is a private equity firm focusing exclusively on real estate investments. The company launched its first fund, Sveafastigheter Sverige I in 2003. In April 2006, Sveafastigheter launched its second fund, Sveafastigheter Fund II. Sveafastigheter Fund II is a real estate private equity fund for institutional investors and has a capacity to acquire properties with a value of approximately SEK 10 billion. The fund primarily targets investment opportunities in Sweden, Finland and around the Baltic Sea with a high and sustainable current income, regardless of location and type of property. Sveafastigheter owns through its funds properties with an underlying value of SEK 6 billion with total lettable space of 700,000 square metres.