LaSalle buys Prague office building for €57 million – EuropaProperty

LaSalle Investment Management has acquired the River Garden I office complex in Prague’s Karlín business district on behalf of its LaVA mandate for around €57 million. The seller is Slovak asset management company IAD Investments on behalf of Prvý realitný fond.

This is the LaVA’s first acquisition in the Czech Republic and IAD Investments’ first sale of a prime office project from its fund’s portfolio. River Garden I has a total leasable area of 19,200 sqm, of which 16,593 sqm is Class A office space, with the remainder being retail and storage space.

“This acquisition further underlines our confidence in the Karlín office market, after we acquired River Garden II and III at the end of last year on behalf of another fund. LaSalle has now invested over €220 million in Prague on behalf of other funds that we manage and will continue to do so in order to benefit from the country’s strong and growing economy,” said Chris Zeuner, Head of acquisitions for Northern, Central and Southern Europe at LaSalle Investment Management commented.

The €84 million purchase of River Garden I and II, which have a combined area of 25,000 sqm, was carried out by LaSalle Investment Management and Aviva Investors on behalf of their Pan-European fund Encore+. LaVA is a co-investment vehicle with a total equity commitment of €300 million set up between LaSalle to invest in value-add real estate across Europe. Its strategy is to acquire properties in all segments (apart from hotels) with strong locational characteristics but that require intensive asset management, physical upgrades and/or changes of use to reposition them as core real estate assets.