Cas Clients

Diamond

The Cushman & Wakefield Capital Markets team have advised Global Estate Group & Life Tree Group on the forward sale of a SPV holding the Diamond project in Ghent.

Key numbers

◆ 7 floors
◆ ± 14,000 sq m office space
◆ ± 1,100 sq m of common areas
and a restaurant area of 889 sq m
◆ 160 parking units

Learn more

01 The opportunity

Diamond is a 7-story standalone office building located on the Koningin Fabiolalaan in Ghent, next to the main railway station of the city. The building had been completely pre-let before by two strong tenants, namely ING and NMBS. Our Capital Markets team was appointed by Flemish developers Global Estate Group and Life Tree Group to organize and structure the sale of this prime office building.

"This successful transaction has set a new benchmark for the Flemish office market and shows that there is still ample capital looking to be deployed."

- Marc-Antoine Buysschaert, Head of Capital Markets

02 The challenges

Despite the many positive features of this building, our teams had to face some challenges along the way. Firstly, Ghent needed to be introduced as more than a secondary city in Belgium. In order to attract foreign institutional investors, potential buyers had to learn that Ghent is foremost the second most important city of Flanders in terms of office space.

Another challenge was the difficulty of managing the transaction structure knowing that it was a forward sale. Started in the summer of 2017, the Diamond building had however the benefit to be completely pre-let before delivery.

03 The solution

Therefore, our team have directly put the focus on creating some liquidity in order to build a competitive environment and on giving a detailed underwriting of the location to draw attention to the many strong points of the Diamond building.

After that, based on the timing of execution, the investor track record as well as the pricing recommended, our team decided to organize a competitive two round bidding process which resulted in finding the perfect candidate for this exceptional project.

04 The results

All this work paid off and ended with a successful sale of the Diamond building to Union Investment Real Estate at an exceptional sales price that resulted in a record low yield for the Flemish office market. Our Capital Markets team made sure to obtain a truly secure transaction by focusing on investors with a strong investment profile and a serious track record.

This project provided Cushman & Wakefield with a great opportunity to show once more their extensive market knowledge to help Global Estate Group & Life Tree Group realize their objectives.

Eager for more details on this story? Get in touch directly with our C&W experts!

CONTACt THE TEAM

Marc-Antoine Buysschaert

Head of Belgium
Brussels, Belgium

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Andy Lemmens

Associate
Brussels, Belgium

+32 493 31 93 57

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