La Française Real Estate Managers and Vectura sign partnership

La Française Real Estate Managers and Vectura sign partnership

Real Estate
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La Française Real Estate Managers (REM), a real estate asset manager with over € 28 billion under management (30/09/2021), of which 50% is managed on behalf of French and international institutional investors, has entered into a strategic partnership with Vectura, a property company specialised in the acquisition, leasing and development of industrial and logistics property assets.

The partnership will focus on the development of last mile logistics assets across France and potentially other markets, including Spain.

The inaugural deal for the partnership is a portfolio of six last-mile delivery stations and urban logistics platforms (totalling more than 40,000 sqm), all of which meet the latest standards for logistics warehouses and are strategically located across France: Greater Paris region, Toulouse, Belfort, Pau, Saint-Quentin and Calais.

The assets, ranging from 5,000 to 10,000 sqm are fully leased, under long-term leases, by blue-chip tenants operating in the e-commerce or delivery services sectors, were acquired by La Française REM, acting on behalf of a major South Korean institutional investor.

According to David Rendall, Managing Director of La Française Real Estate Managers – Institutional Division, quality last-mile logistics assets have favourable valuation perspectives for a variety of reasons, namely:

(1) The growth of e-commerce.
(2) The efficiency of networks, which improves delivery reliability and ultimately customer satisfaction and constitutes a competitive advantage.
(3) Reduced carbon emissions targets which require a widespread presence, as close as possible to end-consumers.
(4) As land becomes scarcer and town zoning rules become more stringent, such development projects will become more and more scarce. All of the locations were chosen on the basis of consumer purchasing statistics and five of the assets are close to bordering countries which will support Pan-European operations.

Michel Chiche, Chairman of Vectura, added, 'We have been involved for many years in the development of state-of-the-art 'last-mile' logistics tools for many players in the supply chain, but also for many end-users. This partnership with La Française Real Estate Managers, a renowned real estate asset manager, is the culmination of many years of hard work and reinforces our development strategy.'

La Française Real Estate Managers was advised by Ashurst on legal aspects, Flusin on notarial aspects and ETYO on technical aspects. BNP Paribas Transaction France was the broker. Vectura was advised by Ariel Pascual and Anne-Christelle Battut-Escarpit on notarial aspects.