Goodman has bought a business park developer in Germany as part of a major push into the country.
Australian property giant Goodman bought Calliston, one of Germany’s leading business park developers, for an undisclosed sum.
Callison has developed over 10m sq ft of business parks across Germany in the last decade, for tenants including Nokia Siemens and L’Oreal.
The company’s three offices in Dusseldorf, Hamburg and Frankfurt will double Goodman’s trio of offices in Germany which are currently based in Langenfeld, Hamburg and Munich. Callison’s 10 employees will join Goodman’s 1,300-strong global team.
Pan-European platform
Goodman said the deal marked a significant step towards building a pan-European business park platform. Goodman has been present in the German market since 2003, and now manages 3.1m sq ft of logistics space in Germany.
The Calliston team is currently working on a number of transactions for the Goodman European Business Park Fund, to complete in 2008. The fund intends to build a long-term portfolio in key German locations.
Rob Wilkinson, managing director of Goodman European Business Parks, said: ‘We believe that the German market is showing real signs of improvement after several years of challenging conditions and we look forward to growing our business in this core European market.’
Andreas Buchmann, managing director of Calliston, added: ‘We believe the time is right to create a new generation of business parks in Germany at a time when the occupier market is starting to show signs of recovery.’
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