Bouwinvest Dutch Office Fund Acquires World Trade Center Rotterdam

Bouwinvest ’s Dutch Office Fund has acquired the World Trade Center in Rotterdam from listed holding company Beurs-WTC, which is 50%-owned by the city’s municipality, for €135 million as part of its investment strategy to diversify the fund’s holdings across the main cities in the Netherlands’ Randstad urban conurbation.

“The multi-tenant and multifunctional characteristics of the WTC complex, with its flexible working areas and modern corporate meeting facilities, fit perfectly with the investment criteria for Bouwinvest’s office fund. They will serve to insulate the asset against the rapid changes occurring in the nature of office space demand. The High Street shopping units included in the acquisition will be incorporated into our Dutch Retail Fund as they also match the type of investments we are looking for in this portfolio, namely prime locations in major cities,” Allard van Spaandonk, Director for the Netherlands at Bouwinvest said.

The total acquisition consists of around 37,000 sqm of offices, a 7,000 sqm congress and events centre and 29 shops with 8,000 sqm of retail space, as well as a further 2,000 sqm of other commercial use. There are also 467 parking spaces underneath the complex.

The WTC Rotterdam purchase, sealed at the end of the last year, takes the total investments by Bouwinvest’s Dutch real estate funds to over €600 million in 2014.