CBRE Investment Management Acquires Exchange Place One, Edinburgh

CBRE Investment Management, on behalf of CBRE UK Property PAIF (“the Fund”), has acquired Exchange Place One, a Grade A office building on Semple Street in Edinburgh from a fund managed by Macquarie Asset Management.

The property comprises 114,748 sq ft of office space spread over ground and five upper floors, a basement car park and one ancillary retail unit. The space offers impressive views of Edinburgh Castle, good floor-to-ceiling heights and high levels of natural light, as well as large, flexible floor plates of 20,000 sq ft.

Exchange Place One is located in Edinburgh’s Exchange quarter, which is popular with financial services businesses. Four floors of the building are occupied by Blackrock; other occupiers include Hymans Robertson, Cundalls, Cameron Hume and Evans Cycles.

The acquisition of Exchange Place One, which currently has a BREEAM ‘Very Good’ rating, provides the Fund with an opportunity to create an ESG-focused office building that meets strong market demand for sustainable, central office space with large floorplates. Plans for the asset include a comprehensive internal refurbishment with significant focus on improving the building’s ESG credentials that will include a full decarbonisation strategy.

Currently, the Edinburgh office market dynamics are highly favourable, with the Grade A city-centre vacancy rate at just 2.2%, reflecting a constrained supply and strong demand for high-quality office accommodation.

Jamie Phillips, Fund Manager of the CBRE UK Property PAIF at CBRE Investment Management, said: “This is a really exciting opportunity to acquire a Grade A office building in a fantastic location. Edinburgh is a vibrant city and its status as a UNESCO World Heritage site places certain constraint on future commercial development within the city. This is in part underpinning the undersupply of Grade A stock, which is at its lowest levels for 20 years. Exchange Place One has impressive floor plates, which can be hard to come by in Edinburgh. Our business plan is focused on taking the building to the next level, creating a top-quality office building that gives Edinburgh’s corporate occupiers a sense of place and the strong sustainability credentials that tenants are quite rightly demanding.”

Christian Goebel, Co-Head of Macquarie Asset Management’s Real Estate team in Europe, said: We are pleased to be able to pass the baton at Exchange Place One after successfully delivering our business plan for this landmark building on behalf of our investors. Exchange Place One has been a great addition to our portfolio, and we look forward to transacting further assets in the United Kingdom in the pursuit of our ambitious growth plans in the real estate sector”

This acquisition forms part of the wider strategy for the UK Property PAIF to reposition the office portfolio to ensure that office assets that are held are adaptable to changing occupier needs.

CBRE Investment Management was advised by CBRE and Avison Young acted for Macquarie Asset Management.

About CBRE Investment Management

CBRE Investment Management is a leading global real assets investment management firm with $133.1 billion in assets under management* as of September 30, 2021, operating in more than 30 offices and 20 countries around the world. Through its investor-operator culture, the firm seeks to deliver sustainable investment solutions across real assets categories, geographies, risk profiles and execution formats so that its clients, people and communities thrive.

CBRE Investment Management is an independently operated affiliate of CBRE Group, Inc. (NYSE:CBRE), the world’s largest commercial real estate services and investment firm (based on 2020 revenue). CBRE has more than 100,000 employees serving clients in more than 100 countries. CBRE Investment Management harnesses CBRE’s data and market insights, investment sourcing and other resources for the benefit of its clients. For more information, please visit www.cbreim.com.

*Assets under management (AUM) refers to the assets under management, fair market value of real assets-related investments with respect to which CBRE Investment Management provides, on a global basis, oversight, investment management services and other advice and which generally consist of investments in real assets; equity in funds and joint ventures; securities portfolios; operating companies and real assets-related loans. This AUM is intended principally to reflect the extent of CBRE Investment Management’s presence in the global real assets market, and its calculation of AUM may differ from the calculations of other asset managers and from its calculation of regulatory assets under management for purposes of certain regulatory filings.

The CBRE UK Property PAIF

The CBRE UK Property PAIF (“Fund”) is an open-ended fund structured as a Property Authorised Investment Fund (PAIF). The Fund at £1.5bn provides diversified exposure to high quality real estate located throughout the UK, across a range of sectors including offices, industrial and retail. It is open for investment to a wide range of institutional investors, both international and from within the UK. The Fund seeks to provide long-term out-performance against its benchmark, the MSCI/AREF UK Quarterly Property Funds – All Balanced Property Fund Index.

CBRE UK Property PAIF is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). This Fund is for professional or qualifying investors who are eligible to invest in a Qualifying Investor Scheme (QIS) within the meaning of the FCA Rules only. It is not intended to be distributed or passed on, directly or indirectly, to any other class of persons. It is not available to ordinary retail investors. CBRE Investment Management (UK Funds) Limited obtained its Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD) licence from the FCA on 15 July 2014 and is the alternative investment fund manager (AIFM) for the CBRE UK Property PAIF. The information contained herein is a marketing communication and is not a contractually binding document. Do not base any final investment decision on this document alone. Please see the Prospectus/Incorporation for full details about the features of the fund, prior to making a decision as to whether to invest in the fund.

No offer or solicitation is being made to US investors by virtue of this release. This release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of any offer to buy shares in CBRE UK Property PAIF, or any other product, and may not be used or relied upon by US investors for making any investment decision. Any offer or solicitation will be made only by means of a confidential Prospectus and related application which will only be provided to qualified investors.