Varma, CapMan Nordic Real Estate Fund and Cavendo partnership acquires Heron City in Stockholm

CapMan press release                             1 September 2016 at 8.30 a.m. EEST 

Varma, CapMan Nordic Real Estate Fund and Cavendo partnership acquires Heron City in Stockholm

Varma, CapMan Nordic Real Estate Fund and Cavendo have purchased Heron City, the 49,400 sqm landmark retail centre located in Kungens Kurva, Stockholm from NIAM for SEK 930 (EUR 98) million.

"We are delighted to have completed this acquisition with both our long standing partner and investor Varma and our new partner Cavendo, who will take responsibility for asset management at the centre. With all of the opportunities it presents, Heron City is a great fit with our value-add strategy," comments Ed Williams, Senior Partner at CapMan Real Estate.

Kungens Kurva is 15 minutes South of Stockholm's city centre and is the busiest retail area in the Nordics with approximately 20 million visitors a year. The area is anchored by the largest IKEA store in the world and the catchment area includes 1.5 million people within a 30-minute drive.

Heron City's main tenants include Sweden's largest cinema operated by SF Bio, home electronics retailer Media Markt, interior design and furniture retailer Mio, Willys supermarket and sports & outdoor retailer XXL. With a distinct retail and leisure offering, Heron City complements the other retail centres in the area and has benefited from increasing visitor numbers and turnover as Kungens Kurva has expanded in recent years. Visitors to Heron City in 2015 amounted to 7.2 million. The property will benefit from significantly improved accessibility and catchment area over the coming years with the completion of the the Stockholm bypass infrastructure project.

"Varma is one of the leading real estate investors in Finland but has been actively pursuing opportunities to expand our international diversification recently. With the excellent and continually improving retail dynamics in the Kungens Kurva area, we are excited to be increasing our retail exposure to Southern Stockholm. Working together with CapMan and Cavendo we aim to make this transaction a success", says Ilkka Tomperi Varma's investment director in charge of real estate investments.

"We are very proud to form this partnership with Varma and CapMan. Heron City is a property with strong fundamentals, which at the same time offers value-add opportunities through active asset management, which fits perfectly with Cavendo's investment philosophy.  We look forward to realising Heron City's full potential together with our partners," says Joakim Karlsson, Managing Director at Cavendo.

"Real estate suits well into our wider investment portfolio and our recent international investments across Western Europe have performed well benefiting from the good underlying fundamentals of many of these growing markets," comments Ilkka Tomperi.

For further information, please contact:
Ed Williams, Senior Partner, CapMan Real Estate, tel. +46 (0)8 445 1051
Ilkka Tomperi, Investment Director Real Estate, Varma, tel. +358 50 379 1903
Joakim Karlsson, Managing Director, Cavendo, tel. +46 (0)736 99 13 70

CapMan www.capman.com
CapMan is a leading Nordic investment and asset management company. For more than 25 years, we have been developing companies and real estate and supporting their sustainable growth. We are committed to understanding the needs of our customers in an ever-changing market environment. Our objective is to provide attractive returns and innovative solutions for our investors and value adding services for professional investment partnerships, growth-oriented companies and tenants. Our independent investment partnerships - Buyout, Real Estate, Russia and Nest Capital - as well as our associated company Norvestia are responsible for investment activities and value creation. CapMan's service business offering includes fundraising advisory services, purchasing activities and fund management services to both internal and external customers. CapMan has 100 professionals and assets under management of €2.8 billion.

Varma www.varma.fi
Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Company is the most solvent earnings-related pension company and largest private investor in Finland. The company is responsible for the statutory earnings-related pension cover of some 860,000 people in the private sector. Premiums written totalled EUR 4.6 billion in 2015 and pension payments stood at EUR 5.2 billion. Varma's investment portfolio amounted to EUR 41.2 billion at the end of June 2016. Varma is one of the largest property owners in Finland with a total real estate portfolio of EUR 3.8 billion. 

Varma.fi / Real Estate: https://www.varma.fi/en/other/kiinteistot/real-estates/

Financial information and investments:

https://www.varma.fi/en/other/about-varma/financial-information-and-investments/  

Annual report 2015 / Real estate investments: http://annualreport.varma.fi/2015/investments/real-estate-investments/

Cavendo www.cavendo.se
Cavendo AB is an independent investment advisory and asset management firm based in Stockholm. The team has a broad experience of acquiring and managing commercial real estate in the Nordic region. Cavendo was founded in 2014 and its clients include Nordic institutions such as AMF Pensionsforsakring and Ilmarinen and more recently, Varma and CapMan.