Aberdeen European Balanced Property Fund buys first Spanish asset

Aberdeen Standard’s open-ended core fund has reached €1bn in assets under management after paying €98 million for Barcelona’s Torre Auditori, a twenty one storey 22,899m² multi-let office building in Barcelona.

The fund secured over €100m worth of new capital commitments in the first quarter of the year and targets retail, office, logistics and mixed-use properties in the Eurozone. It aims to purchase core individual assets which can deliver the fund’s long-term return target while avoiding excessive risk.

Torre Auditori, has an avant-garde design and each of its 21 storeys has a GLA of approximately 1,200 m² of open-space. It also has an energy rating of A and BREEAM certification, which stands out for its sustainability. In addition, it includes 357 parking spaces.

Since 2016, the property is almost fully let to international energy giant Iberdrola which is the 1^st producer of wind energy in Europe and 1^st private electricity producer in Mexico. Other tenants include Cepsa, Ferrovial, Marmedesa, Mémora and Asus.

The office building opened in 2013 and was designed by Tusquets, Díaz y Asociados, the same studio that worked with Iberdrola on the design of the Diagonal Litoral Towers and the Hilton Diagonal Mar hotel in Barcelona.

According to Gert-Jan Kapiteyn, fund manager of the Aberdeen European Balanced Property Fund, «the fund is defensively positioned with a well-diversified portfolio, low leverage, minimal vacancies and long leases. The underpinning of the fund is an investment process that is rigorous in terms of judging each asset on its own merits while ensuring the fund is well diversified across sectors and countries.»

The vendor, Iberdrola, hired BNP Paribas to manage the sale process.