DIFA enters new market with Oslo investment

There is no shortage of lucrative properties in Northern Europe: in early 2006, Hamburg-based DIFA Deutsche Immobilien Fonds AG acquired an office building on the BI campus in Oslo for its institutional real estate fund DIFA Immo-Invest. The total investment in “Campus Nydalen”, which offers 16,400 square metres of office and retail space, amounts to some 62 million euros. As the first German fund manager to enter this market, DIFA is set to benefit from good growth prospects – the Norwegian property market is characterised by mounting demand for high-quality office space, gradually rising rents and growing involvement by international property investors.

The six-storey property forms part of the 95,000 square metre business school campus completed in summer 2005 and situated in the heart of Oslo’s up-and-coming Nydalen office location. The vendor is the BI Norwegian School of Management, the country’s third largest educational institution and one of Europe’s leading business schools, with some 20,000 students. A general lease for the entire building is in place with Nydalen Campus AS, a 100% owned daughter company of Avantor ASA, the developer behind the Nydalen project. The transformation of Nydalen from an industrial area into a modern office location is one of the most ambitious urban development projects in the Norwegian capital. This “new city within the city” has become a highly sought-after location for educational institutions, the service sector and other businesses. By 2010, around 18,000 people are expected to be living, working and studying in the area.

“Entering the Norwegian market is a logical next step towards expanding our Scandinavian portfolio,” says Ingo Hartlief, the DIFA board member responsible for institutional business. DIFA Immo-Invest already has a holding in Stockholm in the shape of the Härden 15+18 office complex. In 2005, the recently established fund invested a total of 375 million euros in eight properties in Europe and North America. Total assets under management by DIFA Immo-Invest are approximately 760 million euros. The fund’s one-year performance is currently 4.1 per cent.