real estate

Arcandor Says Portfolio Deal Near

Arcandor has said it sees its deal to sell its property portfolio to Pirelli Re and Deutsche Bank unit RREEF is nearly set, according to a Reuters News report. The agency estimates the seller will raise from $800 million to $1.2 billion for selling its 49-percent piece of its JV with the Goldman Sachs property fund Whitehall.

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source: commercialpropertynews.com

ProLogis Leases to Yamato Logistics

ProLogis Inc. has leased 399,000 square feet near Tokyo, Japan, to Yamato Logistics, the company has reported. Yamato has leased the space at ProLogis Parc Misato II, a four-story industrial warehouse to be constructed in Misato City, north of Tokyo in the Saitama prefecture. The building will be part of a new mixed-use project planned for development on the site of a former railway switchyard, and will include more than 5.3 million square feet of industrial, retail, residential and office space. Yamato Logistics will operate the space in the ProLogis facility, comprising 638,000 square feet at full build-out, as an e-commerce distribution center.

source: commercialpropertynews.com

Wyndham Hotels & Resorts Expands Footprint in Panama with Hotel Conversion

Wyndham Hotels & Resorts is expanding its footprint into Panama with the conversion of the five-star, 301-room Veneto Hotel & Casino in Panama City. The hotel's name will be changed to The Veneto, a Wyndham Grand Hotel.

The hotel, located on Via Veneto in Panama City's financial and business district, is undergoing a multi-million dollar renovation of its guest room, suites, restaurants and casino. It currently offers four restaurants, a full-service spa and fitness center, rooftop pool, business center, 15,000 square feet of meeting space and a 40,000-square-foot Las Vegas-style casino, one of the largest in Latin America. Silver Entertainment, the gaming and hospitality investment arm of New York-based Andalex Group, will operate the hotel.

"Panama is a great destination market, and a banking and commerce city with many American tourists," Peter Strebel, Wyndham's president, told CPN. He noted that the city is a gateway to Latin America, and that the company has expanded its development team to seek out even more deals in the region. The company has several Latin American deals in various stages of negotiation right now, but Strebel declined to elaborate.

The introduction of the Wyndham flag in Panama is part of the brand's strategy to pursue flagship Wyndham hotel properties in key international and gateway cities. "We've basically been a North American brand for 25 years," Strebel said, noting that since Hotels & Resorts is now part of Wyndham Worldwide Corp., its focus has become more international. Panama marks Wyndham's third international hotel; the other two are in London and China.

Last year, Wyndham Hotel Group, another component of Wyndham Worldwide, announced a strategic partnership with Corinitha Group to jointly manage hotels under the Wyndham and Ramada brands in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, which will bring nine more Wyndham hotels its portfolio by the end of the year, Strebel added.

Overall, Wyndham Worldwide has 10 hotel brands representing nearly 6,500 hotels and 541,000 hotel rooms. Twenty-one percent of its development pipeline is outside of North America.

In late November, Hard Rock International announced that it would enter Latin America with the luxury 445-room Hard Rock Hotel in Farallon, Panama. Other developers are building in the country's fledging hospitality market, as well, including the Trump Organization, who is building the $220 million, 2.4 million-square-foot Trump Ocean Club International Hotel & Tower in Panama City.

source: commercialpropertynews.com

Mitsui Fudosan America Buys Downtown Manhattan Office

The U.S. subsidiary of Japan’s first REIT has announced the purchase of the 400,000-square-foot office building at 100 William Street in downtown Manhattan. The Class A building, which sold for a reported $180 million, is 90 percent leased to tenants that including Citibank, Reuters, Interactive Data Corp. and Level 3 Communications.

Mitsui Fudosan America bought the building, completed in 1973, from a partnership led by Lighthouse Real Estate Ventures Inc., which had acquired the property in 1999. Darcy Stacom and William Shanahan of CB Richard Ellis Inc. marketed the building on behalf of the seller.

An MFA spokesperson told CPN that the company, which had a “solid presence” in U.S. commercial real estate in the ’80s, pared that down following the real estate crash of the early ’90s, retaining only its flagship building at 1251 Avenue of the Americas. MFA’s parent company, Mitsui Fudosan Co., was the first Japanese REIT.

About two years ago, the spokesperson explained, MFA started to gear up to become “strategic acquirers” of U.S. commercial real estate again. Since then, through joint ventures, they’ve purchased a 300,000-square-foot Class A office building in San Francisco’s financial district and “a substantial stake” in a planned 300,000-square-foot office building to be constructed at 700 Sixth St. in Washington, D.C.

Bob Constable, an office leasing broker with Cushman & Wakefield who specializes in the Lower Manhattan market, told CPN that although rents in that submarket seem to have hit a plateau, he sees no concern that they’ll soften. Cushman & Wakefield’s figures put Class A office vacancy in the downtown Manhattan market at just 5.1 percent at the end of November.

Constable noted that from October 2006 to October 2007, rents increased about 22 percent in Class A buildings downtown, with net effective rents increasing even more, probably 30 percent or above, in that same period. “The spread between asking and taking was very tight,” he said.

Another factor strengthening the downtown office market, Constable said, is that it’s not dominated by the financial services industry, but instead benefits from a diversifying tenant base.

source: commercialpropertynews.com

Prudential Buys Japanese Asset Management Firm

Prudential Real Estate Investors has acquired Round Hill Capital Partners Kabushiki Kaisha, a Japanese asset management firm that the PREI has frequently done business with. As a subsidiary of PREI, the company will do business in Japan as Prudential Real Estate Investors (Japan) K.K.

PREI has operated in Asia since 1994, conducting business from its Singapore office as Pramerica Real Estate Investors (Asia). Since then, PREI has invested on behalf of clients throughout the region, including in Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, South Korea, China, Thailand and India.

Round Hill, established in 2001 as a real estate asset management firm in Japan, has provided asset management services to PREI since 2003. Before the acquisition, Round Hill arranged 19 investments totaling $1.5 billion for PREI‚s pan-Asian and retail strategies in Japan. According to PREI, the acquisition is a move to beef up its presence in Japan, both as a real estate operation, and in the broader financial services field. Other Prudential entities now active in Japan are the Gibraltar Life Insurance Co., Prudential Investment Management Japan Co. and Pricoa Relocation Asia Pte. Ltd.

PREI is buying into Japan at a time when the Japanese economy, long in the doldrums, seems to have recovered. The Japanese GDP in terms of purchasing power parity was up to $4.218 trillion in 2006, compared with $4.018 trillion in 2005, though this year's growth may not quite match that pace.

source: commercialpropertynews.com

Elbit Buying 80 Percent of Deal in Chennai, India

Elbit Imaging Ltd. has announced that its wholly owned of up to 135 acres of land in Chennai, India. Plans call for a mixed-use project, which will consist principally of high level residential units and a large retail area. The Agreement was concluded with one of the leading real estate owners in Chennai, India, who will retain a 20 percent interest. The total cost of the land is approximately $135 million. The total built up area of the project is anticipated to be approximately 1.3 million square feet.

source: commercialpropertynews.com

St. Regis Makes Landmark Entry into Africa with St. Regis, Cairo

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. has reported that it will introduce the St. Regis brand to Africa, with plans to debut a new property in 2011 in downtown Cairo. The St. Regis, Cairo, will include 299 rooms and 103 serviced apartments as part of a mixed-use development overlooking the Nile River. The hotel will be owned by Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Co. It will be located on the north end of Corniche Road, adjacent to the World Trade Center Cairo and the Misr Bank Tower.

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Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Arcandor Says Portfolio Deal Near

ProLogis Leases to Yamato Logistics

Wyndham Hotels & Resorts Expands Footprint in Panama with Hotel Conversion

Mitsui Fudosan America Buys Downtown Manhattan Office

Prudential Buys Japanese Asset Management Firm

Elbit Buying 80 Percent of Deal in Chennai, India

St. Regis Makes Landmark Entry into Africa with St. Regis, Cairo

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