1. Japan: REIT Acquires Asian Hotel Operator
Real estate investment trust Star Asia Group said it has acquired 100% of shares in hotel and restaurant operator Minacia Co. of Tokyo, giving the REIT ownership of 39 hotels with 5,180 rooms under the Wing International and Tenza hotel brands.
Star Asia, also based in Tokyo with a satellite office in New Jersey, bought the shares from a third party for an undisclosed price, and the deal is expected to close May 31. A Star Asia statement said the privately held company, founded in 2006 by Malcolm MacLean IV and Taro Masuyama, has invested more than 1.27 trillion yen in real estate investments, including properties, companies, loans and securitized assets.
2. UK: Data Center Developer Buys London Industrial Site
An affiliate of data center developer Global Technical Realty acquired a London industrial site for about £315 million, part of a larger round of logistics transactions involving seller Royal London Asset Management Property.
Headquartered in London, GTR is a European-focused data center investment and development platform funded by KKR, among the world’s largest investment firms. The firm in 2021 confirmed its first major United Kingdom data center campus, planned to include three facilities in Slough, England.
3. France: Housing Development Faces Challenges
Residential development in France is facing significant headwinds on several fronts, affecting supply and demand, according to the head of a prominent developer trade group.
Pascal Boulanger, chairman of the Fédération des Promoteurs Immobilier or FPI, told Business Immo that housing development is “dying on all sides,” as data showed building permits issued for multifamily housing dropped 7.6% in the first quarter compared with a year earlier. Boulanger pointed to an unprecedented 41.2% decline in housing units placed up for sale, with construction lead times continuing to grow.
4. Germany: Tishman Speyer Enters Data Center Market
Tishman Speyer acquired a 75,000-square-meter site in Frankfurt to develop data centers, marking the New York-based company’s first planned project in the fast-growing property category.
The company said it has arranged to join Mainova WebHouse GmbH, which specializes in sustainable data centers, as a joint venture partner. Tishman Speyer also plans an industrial and logistics project on the Frankfurt site that will be its first industrial and business park in Germany, slated to include self-storage and manufacturing components.
5. Canada: Almost 1,000 Housing Units Planned Near Transit
The push across North America for more residential development near mass transit is playing out in a large parking lot of a Ford car dealership near the future Anjou metro station in eastern Montreal.
The site is proposed to become home to nearly 1,000 housing units in a development led by Groupe HD along with investment partners Kastello Immobilier and Bourgie Financial. The companies finalized a $36 million purchase of a 252,000-square-foot property, as planning officials across Canada look to encourage more residential development in areas where car use can be avoided, limiting congestion and pollution.
6. US: Leasing Raises Optimism for Office Recovery
Leaders of Brandywine Realty Trust and other investment firms point to early signs of a potential rebound for United States office properties, including a steady pickup in leasing.
Analysts said other factors including a burst of steeply discounted sales, and hints of interest among large institutional investors, have combined in recent months to provide an improved outlook for offices that commercial real estate stakeholders haven’t experienced since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic more than four years ago. This comes as U.S. commercial property leasing has fallen nearly 15% from its annual pre-pandemic average and office property sales have fallen nationwide.
This report was compiled from CoStar’s news publications in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France and Germany.